A dozen first, then about thirty people arrive little by little once night at the Francophonie roundabout in Niamey, responding to the call of the military who overthrew at the end of July President Mohamed Bazoum.
Friday, August 04, 2023, supporters of the coup d’état have invested several central roundabouts of the Nigerien capital. The day before, the putschists had invited the population to “vigilance” against “spies and foreign forces” and to report any “movement of suspicious individuals”.
“We settled on the strategic roundabouts to make night pickets with the population,” explains Boubacar Kimba Kollo, coordinator of the Support Committee of the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP, which took power), created at the very beginning of the putsch on July 26, and whose first statements taken up by state television date from 29.
“Everyone is circling around (these roundabouts) to get access to the capital,” he said, explaining that he had deployed Committee members to several of Niamey’s central roundabouts.
The objective, he explains, is to “monitor the comings and goings of any suspicious person, whom we try to stop ourselves”. For him, “it is a fight of the people!”
Who are these suspects? ” This is information we have, but we can only keep quiet,” he said. We have real information that pushes us to say that there is an imminent threat to the capital, we can not stay” without doing anything.
Is he referring to a possible imminent military intervention by neighbouring West African countries that are increasing the pressure before the end of the ultimatum they gave to the putschists to restore President Bazoum to office?
There is certainly this, acknowledge several people gathered, but not only: “It is not even the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) that worries us, but a French intervention”, says the coordinator Kimba Kollo evokingmixes foreign legion, enemies of the people, and more generally, “all those who try to attack us”.
Become the main popular harangue of the pro-putsch demonstrations organized since July 26, a “Down with France!” is launched by a young man around.
Another passes by the car around the roundabout with a Nigerien flag at the window. “That’s a patriot, a real!” said Alassane, a young man from the neighbourhood who came, more out of curiosity than political support, to see where the music came from.
– “We’ll stay every night” –
The driver sees the crowd, leans towards the passenger seat, pulls out a Russian flag, puts the handbrake in the middle of the road, gets out of his car, and brandishes the two flags towards the sky.
This support committee is part, with the civil society movement of the M-62, spearheads of support for the military putschists.
They have organized and ensured the security of pro-military gatherings since the coup, and are the voices of putschists who control their speeches to the extreme.
In some respects, they resemble the Yerewolo movements and the Collectif de défense des militaires in Bamako, two leading platforms in the rhetoric of the Malian military regime, and the committees of popular vigilance close to the putschists in Ouagadougou.
In the streets of Niamey, many are those who, while supporting this new coup, the fifth in the history of Niger, also call for de-escalation.
In the Place de la Francophonie, in the heart of one of the capital’s many working-class neighbourhoods, cars pass by without paying much attention to this gathering to which dozens of talibé children from Koranic schools have quickly been grafted.
Friday, August 04, 2023, vigilance still seemed to break in but, promises the deputy coordinator Tassirou Issa, “we will soon control all the trucks, all the vehicles, we are 25 million policemen in Niger, 25 million soldiers”, reference to the number of inhabitants of the country.
He has a flocked cap of General Abdourahamane Tiani, the leader of the coup, screwed on the skull.
Mahamat Bashir, a fashion designer, goes through this: “It is important to support my country, the military. I came to support what is happening here!”.
After 22:00, the Nigerian anthem comes out of the speakers. The atmosphere is joyful and Boubacar Kimba Kollo warns: “We will stay every night until the end of the threat!”.
