Niger junta threatens immediate and unannounced response to any aggression from outside
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Niger junta threatens to attack ( immediate and unannounced) member country of ECOWAS as the ousted leader calls for help
Niger junta threatens to attack ( immediate and unannounced) member country of ECOWAS as the ousted leader calls for help.
Niger’s recently installed junta has threatened to attack a member country of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) if the West African bloc intervenes militarily in the country.
Amadou Abdramane, the spokesperson for the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, made the remarks while reading a declaration on state television announcing the recall of the country’s ambassadors in Paris, Abuja, Lome, and Washington.
“Any aggression or attempted aggression against the State of Niger will see an immediate and unannounced response from the Niger Defense and Security Forces on one of (the bloc’s) members,” he said.
This came with “the exception of suspended friendly countries,” he added, alluding to Guinea, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
Nigeria is the current ECOWAS chair and has vowed a firm response against coups.
Calling on society to be careful about the armies and agents of foreign countries, Abdramane urged the Nigerien people to inform officials about any suspicious incidents.
All military cooperation and protocols have been terminated with France, said the declaration.
On Wednesday, the US ordered the evacuation of all non-emergency government personnel from its embassy in Niger amid fears of growing conflict.
European countries, including France, have evacuated their nationals.
On July 26, President Mohamed Bazoum was detained by members of the Presidential Guard, and that evening, the military announced that it had seized power.
Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, the commander of Niger’s presidential guard, declared himself the head of a transitional government two days after deposing Bazoum.
ECOWAS issued a one-week deadline to Niger’s junta on Sunday to return the country to normal and release Bazoum, who was democratically elected in 2021.
The West African bloc has threatened to use force, and its defense chiefs have met in Nigeria to discuss this.
Meanwhile, Bazoum, who has been held by the coup plotters with his family since his ousting, said Thursday that if the putsch proved successful, “it will have devastating consequences for our country, our region, and the entire world”.
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In a column in The Washington Post, his first lengthy statement since his detention began, he called on “the US government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order”.
“I write this as a hostage,” he said.
“Niger is under attack from a military junta … and I am just one of hundreds of citizens who have been arbitrarily and illegally imprisoned.
“This coup must end, and the junta must free everyone they have unlawfully arrested,” he wrote.
He said his country had been a bulwark of hope in a region increasingly buffeted by extremism and ruled by military juntas.
“In Africa’s troubled Sahel region, Niger stands as the last bastion of respect for human rights amid the authoritarian movements that have overtaken some of our neighbours,” he wrote.
He warned that Niger’s neighbours have increasingly invited in “criminal Russian mercenaries such as the Wagner Group at the expense of their people’s rights and dignity”.
“The entire Sahel region,” he said, “could fall to Russian influence via the Wagner Group, whose brutal terrorism has been on full display in Ukraine.”
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