Algeria Sends Its Army Abroad to Guard Pipelines Instead of People

Here is a year to remember: 1973. That is the last time Algeria sent its soldiers beyond its borders, when Algiers dispatched units to support Egypt in the Yom Kippur War. On Sunday, its parliament voted to do it again. The destination is Niger, where a general who seized power in a July 2023 coup has kept the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, locked away for more than three years. The stated purpose is to protect energy facilities.

So we have to ask the question that every Algerian and every Nigerien deserves an answer to. Who is this army protecting? Because the pipeline is not a child. The pipeline does not go hungry, and it does not bury its dead in unmarked graves. The people of Tillabéri and Tahoua, the herders and farmers who live in the path of jihadist violence, will not be the ones who collect the revenue from this gas.

Consider the vote itself. Algeria's 2020 constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in parliament before troops can be sent abroad. The upper house approved the measure with all 148 members present voting yes. The lower house passed it by an absolute majority but did not even publish the number of troops. This is what we call a parliament in Algeria: a chamber that rubber-stamps the decisions of the army and the presidency, then calls it democracy. Algerians deserve better than a legislature that debates nothing and questions nothing.

The sequence of events tells the real story. In early October, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune told the nation, "We will protect Niger no matter what," and then added the honest part: "Today, we have interests." Those interests are oil, mining, and the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, a project meant to carry Nigerian gas through Niger and Algeria to European markets. Algeria has also gifted four military helicopters to Niamey, inaugurated a 40-megawatt power plant in June to supply the capital, and signed a military cooperation protocol after a visit from Niger's Defence Minister Salifou Modi. Every step has been about infrastructure and commerce. None of it has been about the civilians caught between armed groups and a junta that has no mandate from its own people.

We must also be clear about what Algeria is doing with its neighbours. In 2025 Algerian air defences downed a drone from Mali, triggering a row that led Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso to recall their ambassadors from Algiers. Algeria has since cut diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and has no relations with Morocco. Analyst Geoff Porter put it bluntly: when dialogue and international law stop working, states turn to "actual physical presence." That is a polite way of saying that Algeria has decided soldiers are a more reliable currency than diplomacy. Every government in the region should be asking whether that currency will be spent on Nigeriens or on the regime in Niamey.

Context matters here, because the Sahel has been trying this model for years. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger expelled French forces, denounced Western partners, and promised that sovereignty would bring security. The Global Terrorism Index has repeatedly named the Sahel as the epicentre of terrorism deaths in the world. The results are on the ground: expanding jihadist control, displaced villages, and military governments that answer criticism with arrests. Russian mercenaries, now rebranded as Africa Corps, have been brought in to fill the gap. Sovereignty without accountability is not sovereignty. It is a new dependence, dressed in the language of liberation.

Algeria itself knows what unchecked security power looks like. The country survived a brutal civil war in the 1990s that killed tens of thousands of its citizens, and it has since watched the Hirak protest movement of 2019 demand an end to military dominance over civilian rule. Journalists and activists have faced prosecution for speaking out. A state that still struggles with its own democratic deficit has no moral authority to lecture Niger about governance, and it should not be exporting its security apparatus to shield a regime that refuses to answer to its people.

So what should happen? Start with Algeria. Any future deployment abroad must come with a published mandate, a clear troop number, a defined end date, and a public parliamentary debate that Algerian citizens can actually watch and influence. A rubber stamp is not oversight. Demand that the military cooperation protocol be released in full, and that any revenue from the pipeline and mining deals be published under standards such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, so that the money can be traced from the wellhead to the treasury.

Now turn to Niger. No pipeline deal, no helicopter, and no power plant can substitute for the one thing a junta refuses to offer: an election timeline and the release of President Bazoum. The African Union suspended Niger after the coup. It must stop treating that suspension as a bureaucratic line item and start enforcing it with sanctions targeted at the officers who hold power. The Economic Community of West African States should do the same, and it should stop allowing its own members to drift into mutual defence pacts with juntas that have no accountability to their own citizens.

Africa already has proof that a better path exists. Botswana built one of the continent's most prosperous economies by managing diamond revenues transparently and keeping its democratic institutions strong, and it has rotated power peacefully for decades. Mauritius, with its independent judiciary and open markets, shows that small states can thrive on rule of law. Ghana completed a peaceful transfer of power in 2025 after a free and fair election. Senegal, in 2024, forced a delayed election back onto the calendar through its own courts and then watched voters deliver a peaceful transfer at the ballot box. These are the models. They are not perfect, but they prove that the question is not whether Africans can govern themselves well. The question is whether our leaders will let us.

Which brings us to you. Algerians, demand that your parliament treat troop deployments as the constitutional emergencies they are, with real debate and published mandates. Nigeriens, demand Bazoum's release and a dated return to civilian rule, and refuse to let the language of sovereignty be used to silence you. Citizens across the Sahel and West Africa, press your governments and regional bodies to condemn coups without selective hesitation. Follow the contracts, ask who signs them and who profits, and share what you find. Power in this region has always depended on silence. The moment we stop being silent, the pipelines will have to answer to the people who live beside them.

Based on reporting by FRANCE24