The West African economic bloc Ecowas has given the leaders of a coup in Niger until Sunday to restore order. But for now, the elected president remains in detention in his palace and a military council is still in charge.
Defence chiefs from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) are holding an emergency meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss the situation in Niger.
The two-day session, which follows urgent talks by regional heads of state last weekend, will conclude on Friday.
A military intervention in Niger is "the last option on the table", the bloc has said.
According to Thierry Vircoulon, an expert on Central and Southern Africa at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), Ecowas has rarely carried out threats to intervene in previous coups and coup attempts.
And neither Ecowas nor the African Union have the means to lead a military operation on the ground, he told RFI.
A predictable coup?
Vircoulon told RFI English that "what is at stake for now is the liberation of President Bazoum".
Mohamed Bazoum, who was elected president in 2021 in Niger's first ever peaceful transition of power, remains in the hands of his presidential guards, who took him captive on 26 July.
The commander of the presidential guard knew he risked being dismissed, Vircoulon said, "as the level of corruption of the military and the security forces was becoming unsustainable".
The analyst believes an uprising was to be expected, given the influx of resources that France's counter-terrorism operations have brought to Niger. The country became the main regional base for French troops fighting jihadists in the Sahel after relations between France and Mali broke down last year.
According to Vircoulon, the more funds France injected in the "fight against terrorism", the more the Nigerien military were able to siphon off for themselves, creating an impossible situation for the president and his government.
The head of the new military council that now claims to lead Niger, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, has said his action was motivated solely by the desire to tackle "the continuing deterioration of the security situation and poor economic and social governance".
Public opinion
Within Niger, little support has been voiced for Bazoum personally, according to Vircoulon.
Only a few civil society groups have published statements, including Paris-based Tournons La Page ("Turn the Page"), which urged the military to assure a "rapid return to normal constitutional order". It called on all parties to "not inflame tensions or fuel radical rhetoric that could lead to war".
🇳🇪TLP calls on all actors to foster dialogue in #Niger: https://t.co/qnAuZpETyj
— Tournons La Page (@TournonsLaPage) August 3, 2023
We call on #ECOWAS, @_AfricanUnion & international community to 1⃣cease martial injunctions driving the wedge of a major crisis in a region already undermined by the violence of #terrorism⬇️ pic.twitter.com/3pJe4UXamA
It is a sign that the president lacks popular support, Vircoulon told RFI English. "He is not perceived as a representation of a democratic process but more of a transactional power, based on cronyism," he said.
As for fears that foreign powers may be stoking the unrest, after the French embassy in Niamey was attacked and demonstrators were pictured waving Russian flags, Vircoulon believes they should not be overstated.
"It is very easy to give a few people a few hundred CFA francs to hold a Russian flag, or to repeat conspiracy theories about France, the former colonial ruler," he said.
"The military knows how to designate an enemy," Vircoulon said, noting that such rhetoric is effective on people who live in poverty and don't feel their interests are being represented.
To him, the coup demonstrates that Nigeriens do not yet have a fair say in the running of their country, as coups in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso also revealed.
"These countries are not democracies," he said.
