NAIROBI, Kenya — Nearly two weeks have handed because the coup in Niger, and the 2 males making competing claims to energy have gone quiet in latest days. One is the ousted president, who stated final week he’s being held hostage and has been publicly silent since then. The different is the army junta chief who asserts he acted out of concern for the nation’s safety and has inspired Nigeriens to defend it from any overseas intervention.
Here’s a take a look at President Mohamed Bazoum and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani as Niger’s junta defies a menace by the West African regional bloc to step in and use power if essential:
President Mohamed Bazoum
As neighbors in West Africa skilled a number of coups and kicked out the army forces of former colonizer France in latest months, Niger’s president got here to be seen as a vital associate of the West within the battle towards teams linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in what has grow to be the worldwide epicenter of extremism, the huge Sahel area south of the Sahara Desert.
The 63-year-old Bazoum took workplace in early 2021 in Niger’s first peaceable, democratic switch of energy because the nation’s independence in 1960. The most well-liked successor of outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou, Bazoum had been a trainer by coaching and a longtime Cabinet minister who comes from Niger’s small ethnic Arab minority.
Welcomed for his safety cooperation with the United States, France and others as alliances with neighboring nations deteriorated, Bazoum was one in all three “close partners” amongst African leaders to fulfill with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally yr’s U.S.-Africa summit.
Closer to house, Bazoum acquired reward for taking over points equivalent to little one marriage within the nation with the world’s highest delivery price.
But some in his safety forces reportedly felt threatened as Bazoum made modifications in management in latest months. Under home arrest because the coup unfolded, he managed to remain in contact with the surface world by cellphone, at the very least for greater than every week.
“I write this as a hostage,” Bazoum managed to dictate for an opinion piece revealed in The Washington Post on Thursday.
In that piece, he pushed again towards the coup leaders’ assertions that that they had acted in response to rising insecurity in Niger, saying that “to the south, where we face the terrorist group Boko Haram, there have been almost no attacks for two years.” He added, “The country’s north and west have likewise suffered no major attacks since I took office.”
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project supported that in an announcement after the coup in Niger, saying “levels of lethal violence are in steady decline, and significantly reduced in comparison to Mali and Burkina Faso.”
Bazoum urged the United States and different worldwide companions to intervene. Those companions are involved. China issued an announcement on Thursday calling Bazoum a buddy of China and saying that “we hope that his personal safety is ensured.”
U.S. officers stated they had been nonetheless capable of talk with Bazoum and that their most up-to-date contact was Monday morning.
Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani
The former head of the Niger’s presidential guard, Tchiani has accused Bazoum of not doing sufficient to maintain the nation secure from Islamic extremists and declared himself the chief of the mutinous troopers calling themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country,
Now he and his allies have reached out to the Russian mercenary group Wagner for assist, in keeping with Wassim Nasr, a journalist and senior analysis fellow on the Soufan Center, signaling a significant shift in worldwide companions.
The junta is also aligning with neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, which are also led by juntas and are sending a delegation to Niger after saying any overseas intervention there can be seen as a “declaration of war” towards them, too.
Tchiani, who’s in his early 60s, is a military veteran and ally of former president Issoufou. He reportedly helped block a coup try in March 2021 shortly earlier than Bazoum was sworn in as president.
The normal is from the Tillaberi area northwest of the capital and bordering Mali. It is a part of the world inside Niger that has suffered enormously from Islamic extremist assaults. After the coup, he asserted that he had stepped in to keep away from watching Niger’s “inevitable demise.”
Like various high-ranking army officers in African nations, he acquired some U.S. coaching. In the previous, he served as army attache on the Niger embassy in Germany. He additionally took half in a previous mission with the regional bloc, ECOWAS, which now threatens a army intervention if Bazoum isn’t reinstated.
Bazoum had been making ready to fireside Tchiani as head of the presidential guard, the International Crisis Group stated in a report on Monday, citing folks near the president.
The normal hasn’t spoken publicly since a televised speech on Wednesday through which he referred to as on Nigerians to be able to defend towards “all those who want to inflict unspeakable suffering” on the nation. He additionally promised to create the circumstances for a peaceable transition to elections.
Bazoum, nonetheless, in his final public assertion asserted that he’s nonetheless in cost.
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Petesch reported from Chicago. AP diplomatic author Matt Lee in Washington contributed.
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