Niger’s hostage president waits for a rescue plan that doesn’t get him killed
Joel Gehrke
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Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum’s treacherous bodyguards “stumbled into” a coup attempt, raising international hopes that he can return to power — if the shambolic mutineers don’t kill him first.
“In the first day or so, it did not appear that anyone was supportive of this effort, including key military officials,” a senior State Department official told reporters. “[Military leaders] told us that they did not object to what was taking place because they couldn’t figure out how to get the presidential guard to stand down without risk to the life of the president and his family, because the presidential guard had surrounded the president’s residence.”
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That’s a thorny problem for Bazoum’s friends outside the cordon, in Niger and abroad, who have signaled their determination to resist Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani’s arrogation of presidential power. And yet, such leverage would seem to have a shoot-and-lose-it quality that leaves the coup plotters in an uncomfortable position.
“It is clear that there has been an attempt to remove President Bazoum from office,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Monday. “It’s not yet clear that attempt will ultimately be successful, so we are watching and monitoring very — monitoring the situation and trying to prevent President Bazoum from being removed from office.”
The first senior State Department official allowed that it might be “a narrow opportunity to reverse” the coup attempt. The West African states nearest Niger have told their military leaders to begin planning for an intervention. A 15-member bloc of countries known as the Economic Community of West African States has declared the crisis to be “a hostage situation” and set a deadline for the “release and reinstatement” of the democratically-elected president.
“In the event [these] demands are not met within one week, take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger,” the ECOWAS bloc said in a communique released Sunday. “Such measures may include the use of force; to this effect, the Chiefs of defense staff of ECOWAS are to meet immediately.”
Tchiani’s self-seeking maneuver has imperiled one of the closest U.S. friends in the region, a civic-minded leader with a dream of building schools across a poverty-stricken yet resource-rich country that provides a key staging ground for U.S. counterterrorism operations.
“Certainly, education is key in creating an informed society, aware of its rights, its duties,” Bazoum told the Washington Examiner in December. “And, of course, the key element for a democracy to thrive is to have well-educated people that know their rights but [also] know what they should do and what they should not do and that we create a national consciousness in terms of citizenship.”
Bazoum’s fall would deprive the United States and other European allies of a key democratic partner in West Africa, a blow made more severe by Russia’s success in forcing France to end its counterterrorism partnership in neighboring Mali. Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin hastened to offer his services to Tchiani, but the ECOWAS states “condemn[ed] the pronouncement of support by foreign governments and foreign private military contractors,” in an apparent warning to Moscow.
“No more time for us to send a warning signal. … It’s time for action,” said ECOWAS Chairman Bola Tinubu, the president of Nigeria.
The crisis appears to policymakers as a personal dispute with geopolitical ripple effects. Tchiani is understood to have seized the president in order to avert his own firing. The coup plotters tried to portray the ECOWAS countries as tools of colonialism in an apparent effort to claim for their insubordinate operation the mantle of anti-imperialism.
“The aim of this meeting is to approve a plan of aggression against Niger, in the form of an imminent military intervention in Niamey, in cooperation with African countries who are not members of the regional body and certain Western nations,” junta spokesman Amadou Abdramane said on state television, per the Africa Report.
The junta also reportedly warned that an ECOWAS intervention “will end in nothing but the massacre of the Nigerien population and chaos,” but Bazoum’s allies say he remains “optimistic” about the crisis.
“He’s a great fighter and a seasoned trade unionist,” Nigerien Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou said during a France24 broadcast. “If he’s optimistic about the situation, we can believe him. He really hopes that things will evolve in the right direction.”
President Joe Biden’s team is exerting leverage in the form of a threat to sever military and economic cooperation with Niger, which hosts about 1,100 U.S. troops. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed “the strong leadership” of the ECOWAS bloc while urging the parties to broker “a peaceful and expeditious resolution of the current situation.” His team demurred when asked about how the U.S. would respond if Tchiani ignores the ECOWAS ultimatum.
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“The one positive aspect of this situation, to date, has been that there has really been limited or minimal-to-no violence, and I think that’s a goal that everybody shares, [to] try and avoid open conflict,” the senior State Department official said. “If you attack the presidential guard, and their first reaction is to kill the president, that’s not a good outcome.”
So for now, the standoff continues. “There’s really no unrest anywhere in the city or in the country,” the senior State Department official said. “It’s really all focused on the president’s residence.”