The United Kingdom (UK), yesterday, joined the United States of America (USA), France and Germany in condemning the detention of President Mohamed Bazoum by the military junta in Niger Republic, calling for his immediate release.
In a statement by Atinuke Akande-Alegbe, a senior communications officer at the British High Commission, UK said: “We stand with ECOWAS in condemnation of the illegal detention of President Bazoum, his family, and members of the government, as well as the unacceptable conditions under which they are being held, and call for their immediate release.”
Bazoum has been under house arrest since the takeover orchestrated by members of his presidential guard on July 26, 2023. According to the statement, UK recognises Nigeria’s diplomatic mediation efforts to peacefully restore democracy in Niger, through its leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and condemned the coup against Niger’s elected leadership.
This is just as the UK’s Minister for the Armed Forces, James Heappey MP, yesterday, met with Nigerian defence leaders and military chiefs to discuss the situation in Niger.
During his visit, Heappey met the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa; and Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja. The UK defence chief also met with the Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru; and the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle.
Heappey further met with the President of ECOWAS Commission, where he reiterated UK’s support for ECOWAS’ ongoing diplomatic efforts to ensure a peaceful return to democracy in Niger.
“I’m delighted to return to Nigeria for the third time in three years. The UK and Nigerian armed forces have a longstanding partnership through which we continue to tackle violent extremism and other security threats in West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea.
“The UK supports ECOWAS in calling for the peaceful restoration of constitutional order and democracy in Niger and we’ll work with both ECOWAS and our partners across West Africa to support them in that aim,” he said.
Nigeria is a key partner in promoting regional security and countering violent extremism in West Africa, including the Lake Chad Basin. The Nigerian Armed Forces are a leading contributor to the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), showing the resolve of its constituent nations to deliver security in the region.
MEANWHILE, Algeria, yesterday, sent its Foreign Minister, Ahmed Attaf, on a tour of Nigeria, Benin and Ghana, to help find a way out of the Niger crisis, the Algerian diplomacy announced. This move was in a bid to oppose any military intervention in Niger.
Attaf, who was mandated by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, began his working visits to the three West African states yesterday, the ministry announced on its X (ex-Twitter) account.
“He will hold consultations on the crisis in Niger and ways of dealing with it with his counterparts in these countries, which belong to ECOWAS.
“The aim is to contribute to a political solution that will spare this country and the entire region the repercussions of a possible escalation of the situation,” the ministry said.
Algerian diplomacy has a long history of mediating or attempting to resolve numerous international conflicts. President Tebboune, on August 6, said he “categorically rejects any external military intervention” in Niger, which he described as “a direct threat to Algeria.”
There will be “no solution without us. We are the first concerned”, he added, during an interview broadcast on national television.Algeria shares lmost 1,000 km of border with Niger. As Africa’s largest nation, Algeria borders two countries in the throes of profound crises: Mali and Libya, and refuses to open a third front on its borders.
Daughter of ousted Niger president, Zazia Bazoum Mohamed, in an open letter, published in the French daily Le Figaro, said her father is not resigning and is determined to fight to safeguard democracy. In the letter, Zazia, who lives in Paris, called for the release of her father and restoration of constitutional order in Niger.
“Today, taken hostage with his family, he is not resigning because he holds democratic values dear and has always fought against military regimes. He fights and sacrifices himself for the future of our dear country, Niger, for the Sahel and for the whole of West Africa.”
She points out that her father could have given up, “spared his family this suffering and found an important international position. But he decided to fight to safeguard democracy in Niger.”
The soldiers, who overthrew President Bazoum, mainly justified their coup by the deteriorating security situation, which Zazia called fallacious arguments as all the terrorist attacks denounced by the hostage-takers took place before her father was president and, better still, all the hostage-takers and their accomplices were already part of the system they denounce.
“Since they took my country hostage, we have watched helplessly and sadly as terrorist attacks have increased at an alarming rate: more than seven attacks in three weeks, with many deaths.
“This injustice against my family and against Niger makes me wonder if there isn’t a link with the fact that Niger was due to become an oil-exporting country in three months’ time,” she said.
According to her, the hostage-takers and their accomplices know that no one will benefit personally from the oil windfall with her father at the head of the country. “Mohamed Bazoum will always ensure that this wealth benefits the people of Niger and not an elite that believes itself superior to Nigeriens,” she noted.
Thousands of discouraged migrants are stranded in Niger because of border closures following the coup. Niger’s junta closed its airspace and regional countries closed border crossings as part of economic and travel sanctions, making it hard for people to leave.
Niger is an important route both for Africans trying to reach Libya as a jumping off spot to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and those who are returning to their homes with help from the United Nations (UN).
U.N. officials estimate over 7,000 are living on Niger’s streets because centres run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are too crowded to take in more. The centres hold about 5,000 people trying to get home.
The U.N. agency had been assisting approximately 1,250 people a month return to their countries this year. But the closure of borders and airspace has forced it to temporarily suspend returns and its centers are now jammed, said Paola Pace, acting interim chief of mission for IOM in Niger.
“This situation poses challenges for migrants as migrants staying in these centers may experience heightened stress and uncertainty with limited prospects for voluntary return and already crowded facilities,” she said.
Not only are migrants unable to leave but aid groups are unable to bring in food and medical supplies. Before the coup, Niger worked with the European Union in trying to slow the flow of migrants north to Libya and Algeria. The EU had been scheduled to provide more than $200 million to Niger to help it address security, socio-economic and migration challenges.
The EU has however frozen assistance to Niger, same with the United States. Observers, according to a report in the UK Guardian, have linked Mohamed Bazoum’s support for EU policies aimed at stifling migration routes through North Africa to his ousting.
Army officers toppled Bazoum on July 26, as Niger became the fourth West African country since 2020 to have a coup, following Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali.
Domestically, Bazoum had been closely associated with a law against people smuggling that was brought in by Niger’s government with the support of EU authorities in 2015, at the height of the European refugee crisis.
Under the terms of a deal struck with EU leaders, Niger – one of the poorest countries in the world and a transit point for people heading for Libya and then southern Europe – received aid money in return for blocking the migration routes.
Bazoum became interior minister in 2016, the same year the law was implemented. The legislation became known as the “Bazoum law”. In 2021, he was feted by the international community including the former colonial power France after winning elections that ushered in Niger’s first peaceful transition of power.
The legislation was opposed by figures in the Nigerien military who had previously benefited financially from bribes paid by people smugglers and those being smuggled.
Alkontchy Mohamed, a community leader in Agadez – a desert city through which thousands of people used to pass – said everyone related to the people-smuggling industry had been affected by the law.
“The army officers who used to stand on the checkpoints, the people who drove the migrants, the people who would take migrants into Libya – the whole population used to depend on this business,” he said.
On Sunday, people from the Tuareg and Toubou communities protested in front of the offices of IOM and the UNHCR to call for the law to be repealed. The reasons the army launched a coup were many, according to a university professor in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, who did not want to be identified.
“Among them was the impact of their loss of revenues from illegal migration, but also the fact that Bazoum comes from a minority group in Niger.” Jérôme Tubiana, a French researcher and journalist who has covered conflict and displacement issues across the Sahel region and Horn of Africa, said the EU had ignored warnings that its Niger policy could undermine democratic progress in the country.
“Much like in Sudan, EU countries like Italy and Germany were not listening to warnings of the destabilising effects of the migration policy, they were just obsessed with reducing migration,” Tubiana said.
“Now, I’m afraid that within the French establishment voices who believe Africa is not ripe for civilian democracy will rise again, since they see that armies are turning against France only when France supports civilian democracies.”
