A quotation from the speech of Niger Republic Prime Minister, Lamine Zeine Ali Mahaman, has taken over the social media. The scale of its spread is astonishing, considering the global reach of Facebook.
The quote is the graphic serving as the cover picture for this story. It is the portion of a 25 minute, 58 seconds speech the Prime Minister hit the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
For a typical Nigerian reader, the speech is sure to evoke memories of Murtala Mohammed’s ‘Africa Has Come of Age’ thesis to what is today the African Union in 1976.
Apart from radical uranium sovereignty, the Prime Minister characterised terrorism in Niger Republic as a recolonising strategy, something fabricated by outside forces intent on keeping the country vulnerable to control and domination.
Said he, “What is happening in the Sahel is not merely not simply an armed rebellion or a war of religion, nor is it the inevitable result of our own weaknesses, what some call terrorism in our region is the cynical machinery of recolonization dressed in the trappings of extremism”
Unlike Niger Republic which is putting the manipulation of identity to “A France which very often acts through its local proxies, networks and complicity”, no such categorical statement has been heard from Nigeria’s own high state officials, academics and the policy mill.
It is possible that those fighting themselves to finish in Niger Republic’s neighbouring Nigeria might take interest in that contention vis-à-vis why, suddenly, every group is the other’s enemy across the country (Nigeria).
And the PM went on to name the countries which has helped it to be itself, top of which is Algeria.
The AI recording mixes up Nigerien and Nigeria but it seems there is a charge of sabotage against Nigeria at some point in the speech.
It was not all defiance and attacks as the prime minister also reported social progress in Niger Republic in the past few years. Certainly, he announced free education! On the whole, it is an interesting speech to listen to in relation to African international relations.
Other than Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mötley, most observers would rate the Nigerien speech the African star speech at this year’s UNGA although President of Ghana’s speech is no less powerful.
Hotheads such as Fidel Castro of Cuba and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya who were used to radical utilisation of the UNGA platform may no longer be there but the platform is not lacking even hotter heads, including legendary Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov who also fired rhetorical shots at targets everyone can guess.
