Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum went to social media on Thursday to make a bold pledge to defend “hard-won” democratic advances, a day after being deposed in a military coup.
Hassoumi Massoudou, the country’s foreign minister, also made a rallying cry on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, urging “all Democrats and Patriots” to help put an end to the coup.
Their declarations came after troops announced on national television late Wednesday night that Bazoum had been deposed and all institutions of the republic had been suspended, marking the seventh coup in West and Central Africa since 2020.
Members of the presidential guard had cut off the presidential palace in the capital Niamey earlier on Wednesday, trapping Bazoum inside and causing regional and international concern about instability in a country that is a critical ally for Western powers fighting an insurgency in the Sahel region.
Bazoum was still being kept within the presidential palace on Thursday morning, according to Massoudou in an interview with France 24. The minister’s location remained unknown.
Niamey was silent on Thursday morning as inhabitants awakened to shuttered borders and a military-imposed statewide curfew.
Several Bazoum supporters gathered in the city on Wednesday as events unfolded, declaring their opposition to a shift of power, according to a Reuters reporter. They were eventually scattered.
It is unclear who has assumed leadership. The presidential guard is led by General Omar Tchiani, but the broadcast message was given by Colonel Amadou Abdramane of the air force.
Abdramane, who was seated in an office rather than a television studio and was surrounded by nine other officers in fatigues, claimed the military and security services had intervened in reaction to deteriorating security and terrible governance.
Land-locked Niger, a former French colony, is one of many West African countries fighting Islamist terrorists who have conducted a deadly insurgency in the area for the past decade.
Frustrations with the state’s failure to prevent violent attacks on towns and villages contributed to two coups in Mali and two in Burkina Faso since 2020.
Since ties with the military administrations of Burkina Faso and Mali worsened, necessitating foreign army withdrawals, Niger’s role in fighting terrorists has grown increasingly critical.
