The decree signed on 17 September against five Nigeriens, including former Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, lands in a political and military climate already stretched to breaking point. Having survived an attempted putsch on 29 August, Abdourahamane Tiani appears to have turned suspicion into a governing doctrine and the consequences are being felt far beyond the barracks.

Some coincidences tell a story all by themselves.

On 26 July 2023, General Abdourahamane Tiani seized power after overthrowing Mohamed Bazoum. Three years later, on 29 August 2026, the man who took power by force found himself confronting an attempted overthrow of his own.

This time, the gunfire did not come from outside.

It came from within.

The presidential palace was targeted. Air Base 101 was attacked. The public television station was stormed. For several hours, the balance of power inside the military apparatus remained uncertain. Soldiers reportedly hesitated to take sides while mutineers sought to rally other officers.

For a man who rose to power through a coup d’état, the signal is brutal: the very scenario he helped set in motion can now be turned against him.

The 29 August turning point

The attempted putsch did not topple Tiani.

But it profoundly altered the equation of power.

To retake Air Base 101, the junta reportedly had to rely on the intervention of several hundred Russian Africa Corps soldiers. At least 200 military personnel have been arrested since the events of 29 August, mainly from the special forces.

Then the chain of command began to shift.

On 11 September, the chief of defence staff, General Moussa Salaou Barmou, was dismissed. A few days later, four ministers were replaced. The regime, after the attempted putsch, is described as closing ranks.

Officially, the talk is of reorganisation, dysfunction and securing the chain of command.

But in politics, timing matters.

And the timing tells a story: after being threatened, the regime is reorganising around those it considers most reliable.

Then comes the decree

On 17 September, another thunderbolt.

Abdourahamane Tiani signed a decree provisionally stripping five people of their Nigerien nationality.

Among them: Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, former Prime Minister under Mohamed Bazoum.

The decree cites grounds including “intelligence with foreign powers”, the dissemination of data liable to disturb public order, presumed participation in an enterprise to demoralise the army and the nation, and breaches of state security.

It must be stressed: these are accusations and prosecutions mentioned in the decree, not a final judicial conviction.

But politically, the symbolism is heavy.

Because Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou is not just any opponent.

He belongs to the former state apparatus.

He served as Prime Minister under Mohamed Bazoum, the president Tiani overthrew.

And that is precisely where the case takes on another dimension.

Bazoum is no longer in power but his shadow remains

Three years after the coup, former President Mohamed Bazoum remains a central figure in Niger’s political confrontation.

His regime has vanished.

His institutions have been dismantled.

But the men who served him continue to appear in the new regime’s security and judicial files.

With this new decree, five Nigeriens are now provisionally deprived of their nationality under the mechanism established in 2024. The total now stands at 25 people.

A question then arises:

at what point does the defence of the state cease to be merely a security operation and become a political clean-up operation?

The question deserves to be asked without presuming the guilt or innocence of those targeted.

A regime searching for enemies everywhere?

This is where the case becomes more troubling.

Since 29 August, the Nigerien regime must manage a threat that no longer comes only from armed groups or external adversaries.

The threat can now, according to the events reported, come from within the military apparatus itself.

And when the loyalty of soldiers becomes a central question, the temptation can be strong to look for those responsible, relay figures, accomplices or sponsors.

The risk then is seeing suspicion become a method of government.

A soldier replaced.

A minister sidelined.

Soldiers arrested.

Former Bazoum-era officials targeted.

And now, citizens provisionally stripped of their nationality.

Taken separately, each of these acts has its official justification.

Taken together, however, they paint the picture of a regime that, after being directly threatened, is seeking to regain control of every circle likely to represent a vulnerability.

Tiani, the president who no longer trusts anyone?

This may be the most embarrassing question for the regime.

How can one govern sustainably when a regime born of a coup discovers that another coup can be applied to it?

General Tiani now knows this mechanism from the inside.

He knows that a military regime can appear solidly installed until the day a few officers decide to cross a line.

29 August demonstrated it.

What was supposed to be impossible became possible.

What was supposed to be unthinkable happened around the presidential palace.

And when a regime discovers it can be overthrown by the same methods that brought it to the top, the fear of the next plot can quickly become a political obsession.

“Niger is me”?

This is precisely where critics of the regime see a worrying drift.

By deciding who is loyal, who is suspect, who must be arrested, who must be sidelined and now who can provisionally keep their nationality, Tiani gives his detractors the impression of a leader behaving as if he alone holds the keys to the Republic.

As if Niger must be divided between those who support the regime and those who must be excluded from it.

As if serving under Bazoum now constitutes a permanent political offence.

As if every dissenting voice must necessarily hide a plot.

General Tiani is obviously not Niger.

But the concentration of decisions around his person fuels a fundamental question: how far can a regime go when, to protect itself, it ends up seeing threats behind every face?

The paradox of a regime born from a putsch

Therein lies the entire irony of this story.

Tiani reached the top after a coup d’état.

Today, he leads a regime that has itself just escaped an attempted putsch.

And between these two dates, Niger appears to have tipped into a cycle where each crisis produces new purges, each suspicion calls for a new sanction and each attempt at contestation reinforces the concentration of power.

The 17 September decree is therefore not just a matter of nationality.

It is a new episode in a larger battle: that of a regime seeking to eliminate the zones of uncertainty around it.

One question remains, perhaps the most important:

By fighting real or supposed plots, is Tiani building a system where all contestation automatically becomes a plot?

If so, the problem would no longer be just knowing who wants to overthrow Tiani.

It would also be necessary to ask why a regime that claims to be solidly installed now seems so afraid of those around it.

And above all, how far will this logic go?

For when a regime begins to consider its own citizens as potential threats, the line between protecting the state and protecting the regime becomes dangerously thin.

By Mariama Hamani — Analyst

By Mariama Hamani — Analyst