AFPSupporters of the coup yesterday in Niger’s capital Niamey
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 20:05
In Niger, the ultimatum previously imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has expired; the president is still imprisoned and Nigerien soldiers have not reversed the coup. The partnership will talk again on Thursday about next steps, it announced today.
ECOWAS said last week that it had a plan for military intervention if the Nigerien military did not reverse the coup by August 6 at the latest. It was not clear exactly what that military intervention would look like. Moreover, no troops have entered the country so far.
The president of neighboring Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, has played a leading role in threatening to intervene. He received no support from the Nigerian senate on Saturday. The parliamentarians believe that other, non-violent solutions to the conflict should first be looked at.
However, the threat is still in the air. Niger closed its airspace indefinitely last night, according to a government spokesman over the threat of intervention. The military government emphasized that any attempt to violate airspace will be responded to “immediately and forcefully”.
Muscle language?
Opinions differ about whether the threat was just ‘muscle language’ or whether there are actually serious plans.
“For now it is a threat, purely to increase the pressure on the military regime,” Sahel expert Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné of the Institute for Security Studies in Ivory Coast told NOS earlier. But he also does not completely rule out intervention: “ECOWAS has intervened more often, in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia, so there is a possibility.”
France, the country’s former colonizer, said it supported the plan for military action. Whether the country also provides military support in that case is not known. The Netherlands has previously suspended cooperation with the central government in Niger.
Correspondent Elles van Gelder:
“The Nigerian president Tinubu has only recently taken office and is also new as chairman of ECOWAS. A few weeks ago he called for an end to the coups in West Africa and then when the coup in Niger took place, military intervention came as a option on the table in line with his rhetoric of zero tolerance.
A military intervention would be a very high risk, especially since Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea have said that an intervention in Niger is also a declaration of war against them.
Moreover, there is no overall support in Nigeria. Instability on the border with Niger could lead to more terror. The Muslim extremists of Boko Haram are active there, as are many other armed criminal groups.
In addition, the senators in the Islamic northern states of Nigeria feel connected to Niger because they are part of the same ethnic group. Without Nigeria, an intervention is unthinkable because Nigeria has a large army and shares a long border with Niger. It remains to be seen what ECOWAS chooses as the way forward on Thursday.”
2023-08-07 18:05:57
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