The Sahel and the New division of Africa

The war in Ukraine accelerated the emergence of new geo-economic and geo-strategic blocs and with them a new global order is opening the way. In fact, the emergence of new economic blocs and the overlaps that arise between them due to the specific interests of each country, are generating new rivalries between the powers for global dominance. The United States and France, with their allies from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), especially Nigeria, the main African power, are confronting the interests of China and Russia in that region and in the Sahel. One of those rivalries that is hidden behind the political tensions that have generated the coups d'état in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau, have to do with the construction of the trans-Saharan gas pipeline between Nigeria, Niger and Algeria, which will have a length of 4,188 km, of which 1,037 in Nigerian territory, 841 in Niger and 2,310 in Algeria. A gas pipeline that will supply gas to the Sahel countries and from Algeria to European markets.

Those coups d'état against allied governments of the United States and France are a synthesis of the new expressions of rejection against their colonialist models, especially the French who, in their former African colonies, continues to dominate the monetary systems and forces them to have the reverse in French banks and with restrictions to dispose of them.

The Sahel is one of the richest, most strategic and conflictive regions in Africa, but at the same time, one of the most decimated by droughts, hunger and with one of the highest poverty rates in the world. A strip that covers an area of more than three million square kilometers of arid savannas and overwhelming steppes and extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and comprises territories of 12 countries: Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Territory that in recent decades has become one of the most important sanctuaries of Al Qaeda in Africa.

In addition to being one of the most conflictive regions in Africa due to its importance of being a crossroads between North and Sub-Saharan Africa, between the Gulf of Guinea and the north of the continent, between the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa, between the Atlantic and the Indian. Also, because of the enormous mining and energy riches that it possesses.

It also serves as a hinge between West Africa and East Africa and, of course, transcendental within the countries that make up the arc of Islam that goes from Somalia to Indonesia. So the Sahel is a sanctuary for Islamic fundamentalist groups that seek to control trade routes and mining riches in this part of Africa. A military intervention in Niger by the ECOWAS member countries, led by Nigeria, may unleash a spiral of violence by Islamic fundamentalist groups with tribal ties in both countries, and end in a great destabilization of Nigeria and other countries.

The control of the mining riches of these countries by American and French multinationals are the most controversial aspects that are trying to hide behind the curtain of the fights against terrorism. In a mostly Muslim area and strategic from the economic, political and military perspective for Islamist groups.

For France, the conflicts that are generated in Mali and Niger are a national security problem due to the importance of the uranium riches of both countries for its energy system since more than 60% of the uranium used in its electricity generation depends on these countries. Its energy production largely depends on what happens to the uranium concessions that the French multinational Orano has in the Sahel.

Orano is the jewel in the crown of the French economy, a world leader in the production of nuclear energy and an essential part of its foreign policy. A conglomerate with a presence in 50 countries and with millionaire contracts for the construction of new nuclear power plants around the world.
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