It is my candid opinion that it should not be in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s interest to contemplate military option in Niger Republic without first exploring all diplomatic avenues open to him. This personal conviction only became stronger after I read in the news yesterday that Tinubu had written the National Assembly seeking to tighten sanctions on Niger, and to subsequently levy war against the West African state, pursuant to an 8-point resolution of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the ECOWAS. For one, Niger, together with what now are parts of Northeast in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon were once known as Kanem-Bornu Empire.

What nations like Britain, France and Germany, as colonial masters of the area that was Kanem-Bornu Empire did in the name of expanding their spheres of influence was to alter pre-existing age-old traditional patterns that had long before ‘the scramble for Africa’ evolved elaborate administrative machineries, and to in the place of these old patterns introduce alien systems. Today, the old relations still manifests among these nations who hitherto existed under one empire.

Declaring war against Niger, in whatever form – whether unilaterally, in which case Nigeria alone executes the war, or as a multilateral military joint venture coordinated by ECOWAS – will not result in any win-win outcome for Nigeria and by extension the entire subregion. There are displaced Nigerians numbering hundreds of thousands who fled Borno, Yobe and other troubled parts of Nigeria’s Northeast to Niger, following Boko Haram’s sustained onslaught. Even families will be caught up in a likely tension escalation, because some Nigerians married to Nigerien spouses still enjoy and exchange visits, as cross-boarder trade exists among locals living in boarder towns.