A delegation from West African regional bloc ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) arrived in Niger on Thursday evening for talks with coup leader, General Abdourahmane Tiani but left the country without meeting the junta leader.
Led by former Nigerian head of state Abdulsalami Abubakar, the delegation was initially scheduled to present the demands of the ECOWAS leaders. Niger has now severed ties with Nigeria, Togo, France, its coloniser, and the United States.
The dignitaries left a few hours later without having met the head of the junta or overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum.
The regional bloc team, led by former Nigerian Head of State, Mr Abdulsalami Abubakar, initially due to meet the head of the military junta, General Abdourahamane Tiani, to present ECOWAS’s demands, could not achieve why they were in the nation, which shares a border with Nigeria.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, the bloc’s chairman, urged representatives to do whatever it takes to ensure a conclusive and amicable resolution of the situation in Niger.
On Thursday evening, the putschists in Niger announced they would retaliate immediately in the event of aggression or attempted aggression against their country by ECOWAS.
“Any aggression or attempted aggression against the State of Niger will see an immediate and unannounced response from the Niger Defence and Security Forces on one of (the bloc’s) members,” one of the putschists said in a statement read on national television late Thursday.
Thus far, mandates of the American, French, Nigerian and Togolese ambassadors have been ended, as coup leaders announced it was scrapping military pacts made between Niamey and Paris.
Although France, Germany and the European Union have called the takeover by the military officers a coup, the Biden administration so far has refrained from using the word, something that would mean the suspension of all U.S. economic and military assistance.
France, as well as other nations including the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, have already imposed sanctions.
Niger President Mohamed Bazoum says he is being held hostage by the mutinous soldiers.
Envoys for the ECOWAS regional bloc arrived Thursday for talks, having set Niger’s mutinous soldiers a Sunday deadline to release and reinstate Bazoum or face potential force.
The military uprising has been characterized by the same anti-French sentiment of coups in other neighboring former French colonies.
And Thursday, a representative of the military junta now controlling Niger said the country was canceling a raft of military cooperation agreements with Paris. It has also suspended broadcasts of French state-funded international news outlets.
In an announcement on state television, the junta also said it was firing some of the previous government’s key ambassadors, including to the U.S.
Despite African and Western pressure, junta leader Abdourahmane Tiani, the former head of Niger’s presidential guard, has said he will not back down. He has cited insecurity as his main justification, even though data shows militant attacks have been decreasing.
A timely coup?
Amid Niger’s Independence Day festivities, Thursday, many young men gathered to demonstrate in favour of the military coup against democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum with Russian flags and anti-french slogans.
These demonstrations coincided with a speech from coup leader General Abdourahmane Tiani, who decried the threat of interference by ECOWAS and possibly western powers.
The harnessing of anti-west or, more particularly, anti-french sentiment has become a key component of the narrative conveyed by coup leaders, though it is highly probable that Tiana and his fellow military men moved against President Mohamed Bazoum for self-serving reasons. President Bazoum had announced a reshuffle of the presidential guard, removing the general as head of the guard.
Nevertheless, these events have shed a light on wider discontents and underlying tensions. Amongst which, the lingering sense of hostility towards France. Many attribute said hostility to France’s colonial record in the west African country, though the main issue is economical.
According to Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the think-tank Chatham house, the large amounts of military assistance and aid that have been channelled towards Niger from western powers have done very little to visibly benefit the vast majority of impoverished youth for whom, the west’s support towards Bazoum is just another display of the usual power dynamics : elites disregarding the populations needs.
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