More soon, latest piece:
West African bloc meets to discuss Niger coup, saying a military
intervention would be "last resort"
Military
chiefs from the group were meeting on Wednesday to frame a response, while a
delegation was in Niger for negotiations, a week after a coup shook the fragile
nation.
West Africa's regional bloc ECOWAS met on Wednesday to discuss the extremely tense situation in Niger.
The Committee of Chiefs of Defence
Staff (CCDS) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is
meeting in Abuja, in neighbouring Nigeria,
from 2 to 4 August 2023.
Nigeria is the current chair of
ECOWAS and West Africa's largest military and economic power.
The group said on Wednesday
afternoon that a military intervention in junta-ruled Niger would be "the
last resort".
The ECOWAS team is headed by former
Nigerian leader Abdulsalami Abubakar and is in Niger to "negotiate",
added Musah, speaking at the start of the three-day meeting of the grouping's
military chiefs.
ECOWAS leaders still hope to
reinstate Niger's president Mohamed Bazoum, 63, who won elections in 2021 in
the country's first-ever peaceful transition of power.
He was overthrown on 26 July when
members of his own guard detained him at the presidency.
The military's head, General Abdourahamane Tiani, has declared himself leader, but
his claim has been condemned internationally.
Sanctions
and pressure from Nigeria
Meanwhile, Nigeria cut electricity
supplies to intensify pressure on the country's coup leaders on Tuesday.
A source in Niger's power company
confirmed that Nigeria had cut off its electricity supply to its neighbour
as a result of the sanctions.
"Since yesterday, Nigeria has
disconnected the high-voltage line transporting electricity to Niger," the
source at Nigelec, the country's monopoly supplier, told AFP.
Niger is considered one of the
world's poorest countries, and depends on Nigeria for 70 percent of its power,
buying it from the Nigerian
company Mainstream,
according to Nigelec.
The leaders of ECOWAS already
imposed trade and financial sanctions on Sunday, and gave the coup leaders
a week to reinstate Niger's democratically elected president or face potential
use of force.
Nigeria's recently elected
president, Bola Tinubu, vowed to take a firm line against coups that have
proliferated across the region since 2020, most of them the outcome of a bloody
jihadist insurgency.
Support from Mali's,
Guinea's and Burkina Faso's juntas
Meanwhile, General Salifou Mody, one
of the Niger coup leaders, arrived with a delegation in Mali's capital Bamako
on Wednesday, as a senior Nigerien official and a Malian security official
confirmed.
They did not give further details.
Junta-ruled Mali, Guinea and Burkina
Faso warned that any military intervention in their neighbour would be
tantamount to a "declaration of war" against them.
Niger underwent four previous coups
since gaining independence from France in 1960.
Bazoum himself survived two previous
attempted putsches, and his considered as an ally of the current French government.
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