S8 Ep832: 10/16: Gregory Copley examines the instability of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso after their withdrawal from ECOWAS. The region faces increasing jihadist threats and government paranoia regarding French interference. Meanwhile, Chinese influence in Africa

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 6 May 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

10/16: Gregory Copley examines the instability of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso after their withdrawal from ECOWAS. The region faces increasing jihadist threats and government paranoia regarding French interference. Meanwhile, Chinese influence in Africa is weakening as Russia's African Corps remains active but limited.
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0:00.0	I'm John Batchew with Gregory Copley. We're going to West Africa.
0:19.3	We've been watching for some time the story of three states that have dropped out of not only democracy, but also the ECOWAS that was holding them together under the domination in Nigeria. Mali is now at grave risk of being overrun by the jihadists. Niger and Burkina Faso are equally at risk, although right
0:39.5	now they're run by military hunters, and the three of them form the failure of ECOWAS to have a future.
0:48.4	ECOWAS is headed, I believe, by Nigeria. So I'm looking at this from the Nigeria point of view. Is this a threat to Nigeria's
0:56.6	future, Gregory? Well, only to the extent that ECOWAS was a very pacifying organization
1:05.9	within West Africa as a whole. So the withdrawal of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from ECOWAS in the last year,
1:15.1	it was a real blow because they have not been doing well on their own. They are paranoid about French interference and the like.
1:22.4	And basically, those states which created a new block called the alliance de
1:28.7	d'EAR de sahil AES are basically have been concerned that the Nigerian government
1:37.1	is with the help of Benin, the Benin government which is part of ECOWAS,
1:42.4	trying to subvert the AEW states, AES states, rather.
1:50.7	So there's been things going on there.
1:53.9	We had in Burkina Faso, a Nigerian Air Force C-130-H Heres made a forced landing there in Bikinafaso while it was on its way to Portugal for maintenance
2:07.7	because of technical difficulties. But the Nigerian personnel on board were arrested on suspicion of espionage, for example.
2:16.8	There's nothing more than paranoia, really.
2:19.4	But so right now we've got more and more paranoia between the governments.
2:23.6	We've got the growth of a lot of the jihadist groups and movements into Mali, Niger and
2:31.7	Burkina Faso.
2:33.6	And some of that will, of course, stimulate their companion
2:37.5	groups in Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria as well. So what we're seeing is a breakdown in
2:45.1	cooperation in dealing with the counterinsurgency forces there. So it's not a good indication.
2:54.0	You've got also a government in Nigeria,
	...

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