NEWS: NIGER COUP LATEST: ECOWAS DELEGATION MEETS DEPOSED PRESIDENT, JUNTA LEADER AS PM SAYS NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO BAZOUM
AS PM SAYS NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO BAZOUM
A plane
carrying the delegation landed in the capital Niamey at about 1pm (12:00 GMT)
on Saturday, a day after the bloc’s military chiefs said they were ready to
intervene militarily to reinstate Bazoum.
Niger’s governing military council confirmed the arrival of the
ECOWAS representatives, headed by former Nigerian leader Abdulsalami Abubakar.
The group was
allowed to meet Bazoum, the first time foreign officials have seen the ousted
leader in weeks.
“We met Bazoum,
we heard from him what was done to him. He told us about the problems he’s
facing. We’ll take it to the leaders who sent us here,” said Abubakar. “Without
doubt, the meeting has opened discussions to lead to a way to resolve this
crisis.”
A previous
ECOWAS delegation led by Abubakar earlier this month tried and failed to meet
Bazoum and the coup leader.
The West Africa
representatives also met with Tchiani on Saturday, though there was no
information as to what was discussed.
There was no
immediate comment from the military rulers. Tchiani was scheduled to address
the nation in a televised address on Saturday evening.
‘ECOWAS delegates came to Niamey and joined efforts by United
Nations Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel, Leonardo Santos
Simao, who arrived on Friday, in trying to facilitate a resolution to the
continuing crisis.
On
Friday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Simao met the military rulers and
other parties to try and facilitate a swift and peaceful resolution to Niger’s
crisis.
“What we want to see is a return to the constitutional order. We
want to see the liberation of the president and his family, and restoration of
his legitimate authority,” Dujarric said.
On August 10,
ECOWAS ordered the deployment of a “standby force” to restore constitutional
rule in the country.
The soldiers
who overthrew democratically elected Bazoum in July have quickly entrenched
themselves in power, rebuffed most dialogue efforts, and kept Bazoum, his wife
and son under house arrest in the capital.
On Friday, Niger’s state television said Mali and Burkina
Faso had dispatched warplanes in a show of solidarity.
Friday’s announcement is the latest in a series of empty
threats by ECOWAS to forcefully restore democratic rule in Niger, conflict
analysts said.
Immediately after the coup, the bloc gave the military
government seven days to release and restore Bazoum, a deadline that came and
went with no action.
“The putschists won’t be holding their breath this time
over the renewed threat of military action,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the
Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a think tank.
“The soldiers are cementing their rule and appointing
loyal commanders to key units while ECOWAS has no experience with military
action in hostile territory and would have no local support if it tried to
intervene”, he said.
“Niger is a very fragile country that can easily turn, in
case of a military intervention, into a failed state like Sudan,” said
Laessing.
ECOWAS had used force to restore order in member
countries in 2017 in The Gambia when longtime President Yahya Jammeh refused to
step down after he lost the presidential election.
But even in that case, the move had involved diplomatic
efforts led by the then-presidents of Mauritania and Guinea, while Jammeh
appeared to be acting on his own after the Gambian army pledged allegiance to
the winner of the election, Adama Barrow.
Meanwhile Niger’s new prime minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, on Friday, told The New York Times that the generals who overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum during a July 26 coup will do him no harm.
“Nothing will happen to him, because we don’t
have a tradition of violence in Niger,” Zeine, the most senior civilian
appointed by the military leaders, told the newspaper in an interview from
Dakar on the fate of overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum.
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