2024 Letter to The Sahel

Dear Transition Presidents Goita, Traore, and Tchiani,

In my previous letter, I pleaded for President Tchiani to release former President Bazzoum and his family and colleagues from detention, without prejudice. I understand the ambiance of that time was fluid and investigations were underway to prepare the conditions for a trial, with reassurances of their safety and health. Thank you for that due diligence. I encourage you to redouble your efforts toward a speedy trial. Their continued access to the best healthcare Niger can muster, as well as the locus of their trial within Niger will make all the difference for them. I continue to plead for their release, and without prejudice.

President Bazzoum's interview that may have precipitated the coup d'etat in Niger.

In that letter, I also encouraged you to remain with your founding partners in Ecowas and continue to work with your fellow members to not only reverse the untenable and unwise sanctions against your landlocked nations, but to complete a thorough reform of the organization's architecture and sanctions regime. Although you have decided to exit, I am pleased that the remaining members of Ecowas have withdrawn the sanctions against you in recognition of the futility inherent in your compliance. Now that you have achieved marked success in your campaigns against occult insurgencies variously, and in some concert, I hope you have had some time to reflect on whether it is useful to return to Ecowas and continue to work with your neighbors to improve the organization to what you envision for it. Sometimes we make abrupt decisions that may be necessary in the heat of the moment, but that upon reflection and experimentation, we can reverse and improve the ambient conditions which necessitated those decisions. I think of organizations like Ecowas as collegial associations of neighbors and similarly situated persons or communities. Their successes or failures largely depend on the efforts and commitments of their members. For nations, the existence or nonexistence of such collegial organizations are not as impactful as their dissolution once formed, and that dissolution goes to the character and vision of all members. In considering your return to the landmark organization, I encourage you to continue to strengthen your triumvirate association AES as a security appendage of Ecowas, so that your success in the area of your national securities and territorial integrity do not come at the expense of the national securities and territorial integrity of your neighbors, for that would constitute a colossal failure on all your part.

Since my previous letter, quite many intervening events have occurred, and although some of them were beyond your control or purview, I have been impressed with your historic achievements and successes. You have recovered pilfered funds for your treasuries, galvanized your great peoples in circumspect and selfless service to nation, improved your capacity for food production, enhanced base infrastructure, and you are well on your way to be energy-secure. As you continue on that admirable trajectory, I encourage you to launch a Union Commission to study the possibility of The Federal Republic or The Commonwealth of The Sahel, similar in architecture to the Federal Republic of Nigeria or of The United States. This can be achieved this year paving the way for either Senegal, Ivory Coast, or Ghana, or all three of them, to join the Federation in 2025. It is not necessary, or useful, to remain outside of Ecowas, to achieve this Federation for your great peoples. I am reminded that all three of your nations were able to achieve some measure of political independence in the same year, and within a few days of each other in independence year terms. This extraordinary feat, coupled with your common cultures and lingua franca, stand you in great stead for the more robust achievement of federation. With the AES as your Security and Development Agency, and Ecowas as your diplomatic and collegial community organization.

Your International Partners.

In general, partnerships grow from friendships and common activity. Their duration or longevity depend on the desires and commitment of the partners, and on intervening events, some of which again may be beyond the control or purview of the partners. Nations do not forge partnerships with individuals or leaders of other nations but with great peoples and cultures of other nations, proximity being a distant consideration. Along that theme therefore, I encourage you to maintain and continue to enhance your existing partnerships, as well as to nurture renewed partnerships with all nations, large or small. Your partnerships say more about your existing and potential values, than about those of your partners, and if each partner gains something from the partnership, both partners will have accomplished a great deal considering the tremendous feat of moving mountains. Make your partnerships to outlive individuals.

Allow me to close this note by sharing a dream I had yesterday with you. I wondered if The Commonwealth of The Sahel contains the same or higher value minerals and resources as Ukraine does, and you are able to trade in those with the governments and great peoples of Russia, if Putin's or any future leader's imperial ambitions could be husbanded against gratuitous invasions of their neighbors. Although the dream did not reveal a conclusive answer to that wonderment, it did reveal several pathways for Putin's complete withdrawal from Ukraine, one of which was the federation of the Sahel.

May this critical year turn out to be the best years of your lives, for your great and industrious peoples.

Haruna Darbo

Update: May 18th., 2024

Thank you to the gallant peoples of Burkina Faso for defending your democracy. You will be an inspiration to your brothers and sisters of Mali and Niger.

If you like your democracy, you must all participate to safeguard it.

Thank you for you therefore

I encourage the great peoples of Senegal and Benin to join with their neighbors Niger, Burkina, and Mali in the AES Mutual Security Association, and I continue to encourage Mali, Burkina, and Niger to return to ECOWAS. It would be ideal for the three nations to return to ECOWAS as the Federation of Sahel states, but return nonetheless, in your most propitious calendar.