A good two weeks after the coup in Niger, the junta formed a government made up of soldiers and civilians. This was announced by a spokesman for the new rulers. Accordingly, 21 ministerial posts were filled – the generals secure their power.
The military junta in Niger has announced a new government for the West African country. The putschists, who took power at the end of July, read out a list of names of 21 people who are to become ministers on state television on Thursday night. The areas of defense and security remain in the hands of the military.
General Salifou Mody is the new defense minister. Mody is considered number two in Niger after de facto President Abdourahamane Tiani. Mody was military attaché at the Nigerien embassy in Berlin until 2019. The junta had already declared the economist Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as the country’s new prime minister on Tuesday night.
ECOWAS advises on how to proceed
In the bitterly poor country with around 26 million inhabitants, the military removed the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum from power at the end of July and suspended the constitution. An ultimatum from the West African community of states ECOWAS to the putschists to reinstate Bazoum expired at the weekend. In this case, the ECOWAS members had threatened a military operation, which has not yet taken place.
In Nigeria’s capital Abuja, the alliance has been discussing how to proceed since midday. Experts believe that Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, is primarily behind the original threat to Niger. At the beginning of July, as the new president of Africa’s most populous country, when he took over the ECOWAS presidency, he swore to defend democracy against the coup wave in the Sahel.
military solution unlikely
On Tuesday, Tinubu was quoted as saying that he wanted a diplomatic solution. As it became known today, his confidant Muhammadu Sanusi, the former emir of the city of Kano, traveled to Nigeria yesterday and met junta chief Tiani there. It is time diplomacy found “a solution that works for Africa, a solution that works for Niger, that works for Nigeria and a solution that works for humanity,” Sanusi, the Tinubu President, said on the issue talk taught.
In Nigeria itself, the prospect of an intervention in Niger that would have to cross the two countries’ 1,600-kilometer border is extremely unpopular. An intervention force from the ECOWAS states could well be defeated in a confrontation, say military experts. In any case, there is a risk that a military strike will set off a wildfire in the Sahel. This risk would be far too high for ECOWAS.
Niger was an important ally
In previous years, the military had staged coups in the ECOWAS states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea and severed ties to France and the EU. The three states, along with Niger, are now suspended as members. After the ECOWAS threat, Mali and Burkina Faso declared that any intervention would also be regarded as a “declaration of war”.
Until the coup against Bazoum, Niger was a strategically important ally of the US and European countries, as well as the last democracy in the Sahel region on the edge of the Sahara. France and the USA have important bases there, each with more than 1,000 soldiers, and the Bundeswehr operates a logistics hub in the country.