(1) The great irony here is that both Nigeria and the United States are victims of French covert operations. American taxpayers are paying for French neo-colonialism in Africa. The Americans first fell victims to French trickery in Libya. Now its even worse. How so?

(2) 5 days after becoming the newly elected President of France, Emmanuel Macron visited French troops in the West African country of Mali. Then flew into Gao, the largest city in Mali’s north, where political unrest and ethnic strife have raged for more than five years.

(3) He met some of the 1,600 French soldiers stationed there, at the largest French military base outside of France. France intervened in Mali in January 2013 in an effort to drive out Tuareg rebels which had taken advantage of the unrest and conflict created by a rebellion

(4) of the ethnic Tuaregs in 2012. Before one can explain the role played by the U.S. in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel, it is important to understand the continuing role of the French Government and army in the region.

(5) France established military bases in Africa during the colonial period and maintained a military presence in Africa after the ‘flag independence’ of its former colonies in the 1960s. The independence struggle of French Africa resulted, with the exception of Guinea,

(6) in the notional independence of the African states, each with a flag, a national anthem, a football team, and a continuing dependence on France under the terms of a Colonial Pact. The terms of this pact were agreed at the time of independence

(7) as a condition of the de-colonialization of the African states. The Colonial Pact Agreement enshrined a number of special preferences for France in the political, commercial and defence processes in the African countries.

(8) On defence, it agreed to two types of continuing contact. The first was the agreement on military co-operation or Technical Military Aid (AMT) agreements. These covered education, training of soldiers and officers of African security forces.

(9) The second type, secret and binding, were defence agreements supervised and implemented by the French Ministry of Defence, which served as a legal basis for French interventions within the African states by French military forces.

(10) These agreements allowed France to have pre-deployed troops and police in bases across Africa. In other words, French army and gendarme units present permanently and by rotation in bases and military facilities in Africa, run entirely by the French.

(11)The Colonial Pact was much more than an agreement to station soldiers across Africa. It bound the economies of Africa to the control of France. It made the CFA franc the national currency in both former colonial regions of Africa

(12) and created a continuing, and enforceable, dependency on France. What is important about the effects of Françafrique on African states is that the French resisted any locally-engendered change in the rules and had troops and gendarmes available in Africa to put down any

(13) leader with different ambitions. During the last 50 years, a total of 67 coups happened in 26 countries in Africa; 61% of the coups happened in Francophone Africa.

(14) The French began the ‘discipline’ of African leaders by ordering the assassination of Sylvanus Olympio in Togo in 1963 when he wanted his own currency instead of the CFA franc.

(14) There were several other assassinations managed by the French which took place without the use of Legionnaires. They are just too numerous to list. The current problem for France is that it maintains wide engagement of its military in operations outside of metropolitan Fran

(15) These are very expensive. There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories. Such operations are known as “OPEX” for Opérations Extérieures (“External Operations”).

(16) As Nigeria grows the French have concentrated their troop deployments in our backyard to ''check Islamist'' with no specified exit date. 3,500 French forces are organised around four base camps, each with its own focus, and with headquarters based in the Chadian capital

(17) Officially their primary aim is not entirely the suppression of fundamentalist forces.... but in reality their primary aim is to safeguard the French Areva uranium mines in Niger which provide France with fuel for its nuclear power programs.

(18) But is just one problem. MONEY. France’s problem in maintaining its military presence in Africa is that it has run out of money. It cannot afford to maintain such a strong military posture in Africa. It has been able to get the assistance of its European Union

(19) Europeans are not really ready to assist in the Sahel, despite EU plans. Next they turned to Uncle Sam. You see, Under NATO rules the US was obliged to pay two-thirds of these costs or something of the sorts.

(20) So the French, under the guise of a growing ISIS presence in West Africa hoodwinked the U.S into getting involved. In important thing to note, there is nothing like ISIS West Africa. The French came up with that COIN in their attempt to justify its new picot to West Africa

(21) This was exactly what happened in Libya. Sarkozy persuaded a reluctant Obama to get involved. The U.S had no interest by Hillary Clinton prevailed. The invaders (calling themselves NATO) quickly ran out of ammunition, The US spent almost $1.5 billion in the first wave

(22) This is very significant because it revealed for the first time just how weak and powerless the European powers are and their total reliance on the United States, without which France is too weak to mount sustained operations on such a large scale.

(23) NATO has struggled to sustain a deployment of 25,000. They lacked crucial support assets such as helicopters; transport aircraft; ISR and much more. No way they could handle more than 300 sorties a day. They couldnt even launch 150.

(24) The the mightiest military alliance in history a few days old against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country yet they were beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.

(25) The French have requested the support of the U.S. military (through NATO) in its ambition to retain control of its former African colonial empire. This is no hyperbole.

(26) The US has agreed to support the French in West Africa but has been unwilling to commit US regular forces to fighting on the ground. Then began the construction of U.S drone bases in Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Mali.

(27) January. President Trump doesnt really care much about what goes on in West Africa. Why should he? He announced plans to pull out U.S forces out of West Africa. French President goes to Washington pleading for an extension of U.S forces in West Africa. Trump succumbed.

(28)...another $1.5 billion made available for operations. Emmanuel Macron is esctatic and you know what he did? In a NATO summit in Brussels he warned West African leaders against growing anti-French sentiments. In Brussels !!

(29) The U.S has no appetite for another adventure in West Africa so they US financed, armed and supervised the support of French forces in support of an ISIS that does not exist. They stopped using the words Boko Haram but choose ISIS West Africa instead.