23rd August, 2023
By Abubakar Hashim
Despite strong condemnation from foreign powers and organisations, the coup in Niger is a done deal.
There are, among others, two strong reasons this 5th successful coup in Niger has come to stay, despite stiff international opposition:
First, Niger’s former colonial master and closest ally, France, saw it coming. Yesterday’s coup announcement, coincided with a landing of a French special jet in Niamey, the capital, for undisclosed reasons.
Second, the constitution has now been suspended, parliament dissolved, political parties and associations banned and street protests disallowed by the military junta.
Way Out
A transitional government of national unity is in the offing. With similar trappings of the Mali Coup in 2020, former President Bazoum, like his Malian counterpart, Keita, or Guinean Conde, will not be reinstated by the military junta, who, by all indications, have institutionalised a done deal with his continued detention.
Niger, the most coup-prone nation in the world, has witnessed 7 coups, 5 successful, 2 foiled.
Surrounded by Mali and Burkina- both military governments; Chad, with a transitional military council headed by the son of late Idris Deby who was assassinated in 2021, its other neighbour, Nigeria is the only country that is governed by a democratic civilian government.
With this, the Niger military junta feels secure and comfortable, even with likeable diplomatic and economic sanctions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) whose leaders will meet on Sunday, with this position top on the agenda.
*Abubakar, a Sierra Leone-based Nigerian journalist first published this article on 27 July 2023, a day after the coup in Niger.