There is this tension between Western influence,

namely in the form of France and the United States.

France has this currency control over the region,

so there's very little financial autonomy for these states.

You have EcoWaz, which I've heard described

as sort of an African NATO proxy organization

with the same way that NATO has these,

what the Western alliances and people think

are basically just puppeted by the United States,

although there is a sensible autonomy.

And so that on one side, you have the Nigeria

as a the strong Western ally in the region,

an EcoWaz threatening to send troops in

and oust the coup, Western support

for the ostensibly elected government

that was just overthrown,

but also in the background, a feeling as though

the elected government, the overthrown government,

wasn't necessarily democratically elected in the first place.

And I also saw some polls from this economist article

from about a week ago that were suggesting that

majorities in Niger actually supported

...