fAlmost two weeks after the military took power in Niger, the putschists named a head of government. In a statement read on television late Monday night, a spokesman for the military junta named economist Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as the new prime minister. Lamine Zeine used to be economics and finance minister for several years in the cabinet of ex-president Mamadou Tandja, who was ousted in 2010. According to a Nigerien media report, he most recently worked as an economist for the African Development Bank in Chad.
America’s Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said she met with military officials. The talks, which lasted more than two hours in the Niger capital Niamey, were “extremely frank and sometimes quite difficult,” Nuland told journalists by phone on Monday.
US top diplomat meets military
Nuland said they gave a “set of options” for reversing the coup d’état. “This was a first conversation in which the United States offered its good offices if those in power had a desire to return to the constitutional order.” However, she would “not say that this offer was in any way taken into account”.
Nuland said he met with Brigadier General Moussa Salaou Barmou, who was appointed the new military chief of staff. The military did not respond to their requests to meet the self-proclaimed new ruler, General Abdourahamane Tiani, or the established, democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum.
Warning of Mali’s path
Nuland said she has made clear the consequences for relations with the US should Niger not reinstate Bazoum or follow the path of neighboring Mali and bring in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. The military are aware of the “risks” of an alliance with Russia.
In the bitterly poor country with around 26 million inhabitants, the military removed President Bazoum from power at the end of July and suspended the constitution. Under Bazoum, Niger was one of the West’s last remaining strategic partners in the fight against the advance of Islamist terrorists in the Sahel.
An ultimatum from the West African community of states Ecowas to the putschists to reinstate Bazoum expired at the weekend. Otherwise, Ecowas will take action that could include violence, the ultimatum said. The heads of state and government of the Ecowas member states now want to discuss how to proceed in Nigeria’s capital Abuja on Thursday.
According to Africa experts, the states in the region have no interest in a military operation, despite their threats. “I would be surprised if we see any intervention at all. It is not in the interest of any West African country to wage a war against Niger,” Africa analyst Ben Hunter from the British security consultancy Verisk Maplecroft told the German Press Agency.
“It’s hard to imagine an outcome where stable democratic government is installed in Niamey and Ecowas pulls out its troops with clean hands,” Hunter said. The Ecowas planners had also seen military interventions in other parts of the world how difficult and expensive such undertakings could be. States had hoped that the mere threat would have an effect.
Sahel expert Ulf Laessing from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation also considers the conditions for a military strike to be unfavorable. “I don’t think there will be a war. Ecowas have too few skills and no task force,” said Laessing of the dpa. The element of surprise is now over. “Doing such an operation would be very risky and the chance of it going wrong is very high. And the question is what comes after that. Then you would have a bazoum supported by foreign troops. Then there will be a new coup because he is so weak now.” He thinks it is more likely that an agreement will be reached with the putschists on early new elections.
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