Is Tinubu’s bromance with France’s Macron hurting Nigeria’s neighbours?

THE AFRICA REPORT

President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria seeks to return Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali into the ECOWAS fold before his tenure as the union’s chairman ends in July. But his romance with France, in search of investments at a time when anti-French sentiment is at an all-time high in west and central Africa, is frustrating negotiations.

As France’s President Emmanuel Macron rolled out the red carpet to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and his entourage at a ceremony at Les Invalides in central Paris, the authorities in Nigeria’s neighbour Chad were pulling the rug from under the French, effectively terminating a major defence cooperation agreement.

The Mahamat Deby administration said it was time for Chad – France’s most strategic…