The ousting of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum in a military coup marks the latest domino to fall across the Sahel. Almost every country in the region is now under military dictatorship.

Niger is situated in the traditionally difficult to govern Sahel region, the long stretch of semi-arid land between the tropical forests of Sub-Saharan Africa and the mighty Sahara. The French, who controlled Niger for more than half a century, considered the region to be a colonial backwater. To them, it was little more than a sleepy caravan colony, a stopover between the lucrative ports of West Africa and Algiers. After independence, however, that would all change.