No troop deployment was observed Monday morning in Niger, where calm reigned in the capital, the day after the expiration of a West African ultimatum demanding the return to constitutional order after a coup, under pain of the use of “force”.
If the chiefs of staff of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) drew the “contours” of a possible armed intervention in Niger, this one was not automatically triggered at the end of the ultimatum which ended Sunday 06 August 2023 at 22:00 GMT.
An immediate military intervention to restore President Mohamed Bazoum is not envisaged at this stage, according to a source close to ECOWAS. A summit of the leaders of its member countries will take place in “the coming days” to decide, she added.
In spite of the fact that the perpetrators of the coup d’état have not been accepted to date, dialogue seems to be still on the table. The Malian army announced on Monday the sending to Niamey of a joint official delegation Mali/ Burkina Faso, to “testify of the solidarity of the two countries to the brother people of Niger” with the perpetrators of the coup.
Burkina and Mali, neighbors of Niger, also governed by military and also confronted with the violence of jihadist groups, have stressed in recent days that an armed intervention would be “a declaration of war” to their two countries.
Sunday evening, shortly before the end of the ultimatum issued a week earlier by ECOWAS,
the Nigerien military announced to close the country’s airspace “until further notice”. They invoked a “looming threat of intervention from neighbouring countries” assuring that “any attempt to breach airspace” will result in “an energetic and instantaneous response”.
The National Council for the Safeguarding of the Fatherland (CNSP, the body of the military in power) also said that a “pre-deployment for the preparation of the intervention was made in two Central African countries”, without specifying which and adding: “Any state involved will be considered cobelligerent”.
The CNSP has once again attacked France without naming it, warning ECOWAS, which it judges “in the pay” of a “foreign power, against any interference in the internal affairs of Niger, as well as the disastrous consequences of this military adventure on the security of our sub-region”.
Calm in Niamey
Other African voices have spoken out in recent days against any military intervention. Senators from Nigeria, a heavyweight of ECOWAS, called for strengthening “the political and diplomatic option”, and Algeria, another neighbor of Niger and a major player in the Sahel, said through the voice of its president Abdelmadjid Tebboune that an intervention would be an “direct threat” to his country.
And on Monday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said “hope” that the ECOWAS ultimatum would be “extended”. It is not said that we will not find a solution that is not war,’ he said in an interview with the daily La Stampa.
On Monday morning, Niamey awoke in the calm following a show of strength by some 30,000 military supporters who gathered in Niger’s largest stadium in the capital. Flags of Niger, but also of neighboring Burkina or Russia, were brandished, France and Ecowas booed, members of the CNSP came on the spot acclaimed by the crowd.
General Mohamed Toumba, number three of the CNSP, spoke to denounce those “who are lurking in the shadows” and “plotting subversion” against “the march forward of Niger”. President Mohamed Bazoum, who was overthrown on 26 July, has been held prisoner ever since. On Sunday, the Minister of Mines, Ousseini Hadizatou, was released “for medical reasons”, said Monday a member of his entourage. But according to a source close to the party of the ousted president, “all other personalities, ministers and political leaders arrested are still detained”.
The coup that overthrew President Bazoum, a privileged ally of France and the United States, who deploy 1,500 and 1,100 soldiers respectively in the fight against the armed jihadists who undermine Niger and the region, has been strongly condemned in most African countries and elsewhere in the world.
France, a former colonial power in West Africa, increasingly vilified by the supporters of the military who took power in Niamey, Bamako and Ouagadougou, hammered over the weekend its support for ECOWAS’s efforts to bring down the “attempted coup” in Niger.
