International

Niger : Military Junta Proposes Three-Year Transition

Par Eldickson Agbortogo
21 août 2023 12:44
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This was during a meeting in Niamey Saturday with the ECOWAS delegation led by Abdoulsalami Abubakar.

A delegation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has held face-to-face talks with Niger’s Military coup leader Abdourahamane Tiani. During the Saturday, August 19, 2023 talks, the military junta proposed a transitional period of three years at the end of which election would be held and powers transferred to a democratically-elect President. Aljazeera news agency reports that, the ECOWAS delegation who were received on arrival at the airport by the appointed military-Prime Minister, Ali Zeine also met with deposed President Mohamed Bazoum. The New York Times reports that during the ten minutes meeting with the former leader, the junta PM assured the visiting delegation that the ousted President would not come to harm, “Nothing will happen to him, because we don't have a tradition of violence in Niger,” he re-iterated. The deposed President has been under house arrest since the July 26 power grab at the hands of members of Niger's presidential guard, headed by Abdourahamane Tchiani.
The move comes a day after the regional economic bloc said that a force was on standby for military intervention should there be no peaceful resolution to the coup. For two days, ECOWAS defence chiefs met in the Ghanaian capital Accra during which they did map out intervention strategise. The bloc’s commissioner for peace and security, Abdel-Fatau Musah, told Reuters that at the end of the meeting, the military chiefs all agreed to commit troops for a military deployment to Niger, adding that they were “ready to go” whenever the order was given.