A west African diplomatic mission to Niger to seek the release and reinstatement of the country’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, after a coup has failed, raising the risk of a military intervention.
The delegation, which had flown to the Nigerien capital, Niamey, left on Thursday, earlier than planned, without having met Bazoum or the coup leader, Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani.
The delegation, sent by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), left without spending the night, even as Ecowas’s deadline to the junta for restoring Bazoum to power and the country’s constitution by Sunday drew closer.
The mission was being led by the former Nigerian head of state Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar. A second group, led by the Nigerian diplomat Babagana Kingibe, has gone to engage with the leaders of neighbouring Libya and Algeria.
Regional military chiefs have been meeting in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to discuss the possibility of a military intervention.
The rapidly escalating crisis has resulted in Niger recalling its ambassadors to France, the US, Nigeria and Togo, amid unconfirmed reports in Nigerian media that Niger was preparing to expel the ambassadors of those countries.
With the Ecowas deadline for restoring Bazoum due to run out on Sunday, Niger’s coup leaders appear to have set themselves on a collision course with the country’s former western backers and Ecowas as they have stirred up anti-foreign sentiments to back their claim to power.
Late on Thursday the junta revoked five military cooperation agreements with France, which has had 1,000 to 1,500 troops in Niger to help fight Islamist insurgent groups.
The decision about the revocation of the deals with France, dating between 1977 and 2020, was read out on national television late on Thursday by the junta representative Col Amadou Abdramane. He said a diplomatic notice would be sent to France to that effect.
Niger also suspended broadcasts of French state-funded international news outlets France 24 and RFI.
Responding to the announcement France on Friday rejected the Niger junta’s move to scrap bilateral military pacts, saying the West African country’s “legitimate” leadership alone was entitled to do so.
“The legal framework of France’s defence agreement with Niger is based on accords that were signed with the legitimate Nigerien authorities,” the foreign ministry said, after the junta in Niamey said it was scrapping military cooperation agreements with Paris.
It did, however, “take note” of the junta’s statement on military cooperation, it said.
The officers behind the coup said they would resist any foreign military intervention.
“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.
This came with “the exception of suspended friendly countries”, an allusion to Burkina Faso and Mali, neighbouring countries that have also fallen to military coups in recent years. Those countries’ juntas have said any military intervention in Niger would be tantamount to a “declaration of war”.
Bazoum, who has been held by the coup plotters with his family since being ousted, said on Thursday that if the putsch proved successful, “it will have devastating consequences for our country, our region and the entire world”.
In a column in the Washington Post – his first lengthy statement since his detention – Bazoum, 63, called on “the US government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order”.
Across Niger on Thursday, thousands of people rallied behind the coup leaders on the anniversary of the country’s independence on 3 August 1960, some waving giant Russian flags and chanting anti-French slogans.
Anti-French sentiment in the region is on the rise, while Russian activity, often through the Wagner mercenary group, has grown.
Bazoum has said 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.”
Niger has had a key role in western strategies to combat a jihadist insurgency that has plagued the Sahel since 2012, with France and the US stationing around 1,500 and 1,000 troops in the country respectively.
France has evacuated 1,079 people from Niger, more than half of them its nationals, since the coup. The US state department said it had chartered a plane to evacuate non-essential personnel and American citizens wishing to leave the country.
Bazoum was feted in 2021 after winning elections that ushered in Niger’s first-ever peaceful transition of power.
