Rotterdam – Walk through Crooswijk on a winter evening and you’ll hear fragments of conversations that stretch far beyond the Maas. In cafés, on trams, in living rooms, people talk about Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali. They talk about coups, closed borders, and the strange silence of Western media. It feels distant, yet the echoes land here in Rotterdam, a city built on migration, trade, and the constant push and pull of power.
The story unfolding in West Africa is not just about soldiers and presidents. It’s about who gets to decide the future of a region, and who is forced to listen. Nigeria, the giant of ECOWAS, has sent troops toward Benin. The AES countries—Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger—have shut their skies and accused their neighbors of provocation. Local media in Ouagadougou and Bamako speak of Nigerian planes forced down, crews arrested, spies crossing borders. Western outlets? Almost silent.
Nigeria’s Balancing Act
Nigeria is a country of contradictions. It’s massive, restless, and deeply divided. In the northeast, Boko Haram and ISWAP continue to terrorize communities. Families live in fear, villages are burned, and displacement camps overflow. Yet Abuja insists on sending soldiers to Benin, presenting itself as the responsible leader of ECOWAS.
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For many Nigerians, this feels like betrayal. Why fight for prestige abroad when your own people are dying at home? Social media in Lagos and Kano is full of frustration: protect Borno first, then talk about Benin. But the government sees things differently. Nigeria wants to show it can lead, that it can stand up to the AES bloc and keep ECOWAS relevant.
This is not just about borders. It’s about influence. ECOWAS versus AES is the new fault line in West Africa. And Nigeria, with its size and ambition, refuses to be sidelined.
AES: A Different Path
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have chosen a different road. They broke with ECOWAS, expelled French troops, and embraced a narrative of sovereignty. Their leaders—Traoré in Burkina Faso, Goïta in Mali, Tchiani in Niger—speak of independence, dignity, and resistance against foreign manipulation.
Local media in these countries tell a story of constant threat. They say contracoups are planned from Ivoorkust and Benin, that spies cross borders, that France and the US pull strings behind the scenes. Whether every detail is true or not, the narrative is powerful. It mobilizes people, it builds legitimacy, and it paints ECOWAS as a puppet of Western interests.
In Ouagadougou, the word “sovereignty” is not abstract. It’s survival.
The Silence of the West
And then there’s the silence. In Europe, in the US, mainstream outlets barely mention these tensions. No headlines about Nigerian planes forced down in Burkina Faso. No deep dives into the accusations of espionage. Instead, the narrative is one of “stability” and “restored calm.”
But calm is not what people in the Sahel feel. They live in a fragile wapenstilstand, a tense pause where everyone knows the next move could spark fire.
Why the silence? Because Nigeria is a partner. Because Ivoorkust and Benin are loyal allies. Because France still has bases, contracts, and influence there. To admit that coups and counter‑coups are being plotted from those countries would be to admit that Western influence is not neutral, but deeply entangled in the region’s instability.
Propaganda and Perception
War is not only fought with guns. It’s fought with images, stories, and silence. In Syria and Iraq, propaganda was everywhere: photos, videos, claims of atrocities. Some were real, many were manipulated. The same is true in West Africa.
A photo circulates of a leader holding severed heads. Some say they are American, others say Christian. The truth? Impossible to verify. But the image itself becomes a weapon. It shapes perception, it fuels anger, it divides audiences.
In Burkina Faso, local TV and radio amplify stories of spies and contracoups. In Africa, vloggers and influencers repeat those stories, connecting them to broader patterns of Western manipulation. In Paris and Washington, silence is the strategy.
Rotterdam’s Echo
Why does this matter here? Because Rotterdam is a city of echoes. Migrant communities from Africa, the Middle East, and beyond carry these stories with them. They talk about betrayal, about resilience, about the way Western powers play games with their homelands.
In Delfshaven, you hear Somali voices remembering displacement. In Crooswijk, Syrian families recall the war and the way foreign fighters flooded their country. In community centers, Burkinese and Malian migrants discuss Traoré and Goïta, proud of their defiance.
Rotterdam is not neutral. It’s a listening post, a place where global narratives collide and are reinterpreted.
Boko Haram: Instrument or Enemy?
The question that keeps surfacing: is Boko Haram just a local extremist group, or is it also a geopolitical instrument?
Officially, Boko Haram is a homegrown movement that radicalized after state repression. But critics argue that its persistence serves a purpose. It destabilizes Nigeria, keeps the government dependent on Western military aid, and reminds everyone who holds the strings.
Look at Mali and Burkina Faso: violence often escalated when they resisted French influence. Coincidence? Or strategy?
In Rotterdam, people connect the dots. They remember the 200 Dutch fighters who died in Syria and Iraq, the way radicalization spread in European cities, the way Western allies in the Middle East played double games. They see Boko Haram not just as an enemy, but as part of a larger pattern of manipulation.
Narratives in Conflict
So we have two narratives:
- Official: Nigeria leads ECOWAS, fights extremism, and seeks stability. AES countries are reckless, destabilizing, and need to be contained.
- Critical: Nigeria is distracted, Boko Haram is a tool, and ECOWAS is a puppet of France and the US. AES countries are resisting foreign control, and that resistance is punished with coups and sabotage.
Both narratives exist simultaneously. Which one dominates depends on where you stand, what you read, and who you trust.
The Dutch Lens
For readers in the Netherlands, this is not just distant geopolitics. It’s a mirror. Dutch history is full of colonial entanglements, of trade routes that carried both wealth and exploitation. The debates about mosques in Amsterdam, about migration, about identity—these are connected to the same global currents.
When Burkinese media speak of spies from Ivoorkust, when Nigerian citizens complain about soldiers in Benin, when Western outlets stay silent—Rotterdam feels the reverberations.
The Dutch spirit is skeptical, direct, unwilling to accept easy narratives. People here know that silence often hides interests. They know that “restored calm” is rarely the full story.
Beyond the Headlines
What matters now is to listen carefully. To hear the voices from Ouagadougou, Bamako, Niamey. To recognize that local media, vloggers, and influencers are not just noise, but part of the fabric of truth. To see that Western silence is itself a narrative, one that protects alliances and contracts.
In Rotterdam, the conversations continue. In cafés, in studios, in community halls, people connect the dots. They talk about Nigeria, Benin, Ivoorkust, Burkina Faso. They talk about propaganda, about silence, about betrayal.
And they know: the story is not over.
Dutch Echo 
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