General Abdourahamane Tiani of Niger was proclaimed the new leader on Friday following a military takeover, according to state television. According to a statement, the chief of the Presidential Guard has been designated “president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland,” with elected President Mohamed Bazoum jailed by army putschists since Wednesday morning.
General Abdourahamane Tiani, the head of Niger’s presidential guard, appeared on state television on Friday to explain last week’s military coup, stating that the soldiers in the country had acted to protect national security.
Tiani reiterated that the military had seized power as security deteriorated. In the war against insurgencies, he also questioned the absence of “genuine collaboration” with military regimes in Mali and Burkina Faso.
“The harsh reality of insecurity in Niger, experienced by our defense forces and hardworking populations, with its toll of deaths, displacement, humiliation, and frustration, reminds us on a daily basis of this stark reality,” Tiani said.
“What sense lies in the security approach against terrorism that excludes any genuine collaboration with Burkina Faso and Mali, even though we share the Liptako-Gourma zone, where most of the terrorist group activities we are fighting against are concentrated,” he added.
The guard seized President Mohamed Bazoum at the presidential residence on Wednesday. Later, a number of cops appeared on official television and claimed to have deposed Bazoum.
The Wagner group’s leader applauds Niger’s military takeover
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary group Wagner, praised Niger’s military coup as “good news,” and offered the services of his fighters to restore order.
According to Reuters, a voice message on Telegram app channels affiliated with Wagner stated that while Prigozhin did not acknowledge involvement in the coup, he did describe it as a moment of long-overdue liberation from Western colonizers.
“What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonizers. With colonizers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago,” said the message, posted on Thursday evening.
“Today this is effectively gaining their independence. The rest will, without doubt, depend on the citizens of Niger and how effective governance will be, but the main thing is this: they have got rid of the colonizers,” the message said.
The coup in Niger has been denounced
The country’s former colonial power, France, and the West African regional grouping ECOWAS demanded that Niger President Mohamed Bazoum be released immediately. They also advocated for a return to constitutional order.
After his foreign minister acknowledged the power grab did not appear to be final, French President Emmanuel Macron indicated he was ready to back penalties against the perpetrators of the “dangerous” coup.
“This coup d’etat is completely illegitimate,” Macron told a news conference in Papua New Guinea. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, constitutional order must be restored.
The cooperation with the Niger administration was serendipitous, according to US Vice President Kamala Harris, because of its “continued commitment to democratic standards.”
According to a representative for the US-UN mission, the US also supports taking action in the United Nations Security Council to de-escalate the situation.