By Ayo Yusuf
Following the threat by Nigeria’s President and ECOWAS chairman, Bola Tinubu, that dire consequences will follow if anything happens to Niger’s deposed President Mohamed Bazoum’s health, the junta has promised to keep the detained leader safe.
Niger’s new prime minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, on Friday, assured the world that the generals who overthrew President Bazoum in a July 26 coup will do him no harm.
“Nothing will happen to him, because we don’t have a tradition of violence in Niger,” Mr. Zeine told a reporter in Dakar, Senegal.
Speaking on the fate of the president who had been in detention since the coup, the new PM also assured that the Niger coup leaders had no intention of collaborating with Russia, or with the Kremlin-backed mercenaries of the Wagner group.
It would be recalled that the new military leaders had cut off water and electricity to Bazoum’s house, and threatened to kill him if the ECOWAS multinational force attempt to enter Niger and forcefully restore civilian rule.
Only yesterday President Bola Tinubu warned there will be “grave consequences” if Niger’s military regime allows Bazoum’s health to worsen under house arrest, a European Union official said.
At the UN headquarters in New York, a spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was questioned by reporters on the state of Mr. Bazoum’s health and if he was even still alive.
“I’ve spoken to someone who speaks to him regularly. And, yes, as far as we know and we have no indication to say that he’s not alive. So as far as I know, he’s alive,” said Stephane Dujarric.
Mr. Zeine, who was appointed Niger’s prime minister on August 7, was also questioned by reporters on the presence of 1,100 American soldiers and 1,500 French soldiers fighting against jihadists in anti-terrorist operations with the local army.
Mr. Zeine, a French-trained economist who had served as finance minister in a previous administration, said “the moment will come to review” such military partnerships, while praising the “extremely reasonable position” of the White House in trying to resolve the crisis through diplomacy rather than force.
