₦airaland Forum

Viridis:
It's what I am asking what will they use to enforce the close down I am sure they don't have any radar SAM guess those airplane just don't want to take risk

OGHENAOGIE:
Most of you are just shameless cos an overhyped Messiah Obi didn't win you pple will rather your country burn to the ground and keep supporting military rule and now love Niger suddenly that Ina hate previously cos of buhari...

AntiMarxist:
Last I checked the airspace is closed to flights below FL270.

Can Niger even police their airspace ?

Do they have total radar coverage or the resources to enforce a total airspace lockdown?

They've only two rusty SU-25s and zero SAMs.

The junta is a joke.

British Airways passengers on an Airbus A380 from Johannesburg to London Heathrow went on a 10-hour “flight to nowhere” when Niger’s airspace was suddenly closed late on Sunday night.

Other flights between the UK and South Africa have being re-routed or diverted to take on extra fuel or have returned to their starting points as a result of the closure.

After a military coup ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, the Ecowas regional bloc has threatened intervention to restore the leader.

In response, the ruling junta, led by General Abdourahmane Tchiani, closed the vast country – which is six times the area of Great Britain – to overflying aircraft.

The closure took effect at 11.22pm British time on Sunday, when several UK-South Africa flights were already airborne.

Airspace over Sudan and Libya is already closed to commercial aviation. The addition of Niger means there is now a block to north-south flights across Africa stretching around 2,600 miles from western Niger to the Red Sea.

Die009:
And Igbo will never be president of this country you will only labor in vain just like your forefathers

Sharpsharp00123:
[quote author=SeeThisLoser post=124937802]Some people are shameless. Imagine supporting a criminal to be president of your country because of tribe and religion.u igbos can keep wailing n crying, it’s no longer new to us cos we know u are sore losers

One thing for sure is that an Igbo will never rule us, just know that n know peace

Yoruba have a way with the Sigidi, whose closest modern translation is the robot. So when the Sigidi – a moulded clay effigy – at the height of its self-destruct, asks that it be taken to the river to swim, Yoruba say a catastrophe is in the offing. They render this as, Sigidi nse’re ete, o ni ki won gbe’hun l’odo lo we. Just as the modern robot is credited with the power to take some human actions, the Sigidi too, in the belief of the Yoruba, could. It was one of the insignias of operation of the babalawo. It is puttied all over by clay that is easily dissoluble in water. So, for the Sigidi to ask to be taken to go swim is an invitation to destruction.

Those days when African military generals prepared to embark on war expeditions, they began to manifest queer, supra-human and impenetrable behavior. They recoiled from the world and its realities, wore frightening, fearsome visages and immersed themselves in huge pots of metaphysical liquid preparations Yoruba called agbo ogun. Natives then sang songs to scintillate their bloodthirsty bellicosity. One of such was a song meant to nourish the warmongering inclination in them, rendered as, O npa’le ogun mo, Edumare ma je o t’enu mi jade…

Today marks the expiry of President Bola Tinubu’s ultimatum to the coup plotters of Niger Republic. Against the run of play, when Tinubu, last Friday, wrote the Nigerian Senate seeking its support for military intervention against the junta in Niger Republic, his sabre-rattling bore similar features with those of 17th, 18th and 19th century warlords. Like the Ekitiparapo war which was fought from 1877 to 1893, most wars are triggered by, most times, mundane issues which are however a burst of deep-seated resentments and animosities. This war was regarded as one of the greatest of all wars among the Yoruba, in fact its bloodiest and the most unforgettable in history. It was a war renowned for its varied nomenclatures.

In its rendering as Kiriji War, that appellation was got from the onomatopoeic vibrations of Kirijiji! Kirijiji!! Kirijiji!!! which accompanied the booms of cannons and modern artillery munitions of the said war. When it is rendered as the Ekitiparapo War, it is in reference to the alliance of Ekiti-speaking Yoruba who gathered their ljesa, Igbomina, Egba, ljebu, Ilorin and allied enemies of Ibadan to fight them. Ibadan had by then become so pompous and belligerently oppressive to other parts of Yoruba. As War to End all Wars, it was in reference to the war being the last major war in the 19th century in Yorubaland; and finally, when rendered as The Sixteen Years War, that war’s notoriety for having been prosecuted for 16 consecutive years non-stop is the reference.

While Tinubu’s lure for this war is, on the surface, to protect the ravishing beauty called democracy that may be raped to death in Nigeria’s neighbouring Niger Republic, the bait of the Ekiti Parapo War was Falola, the pretty and delectable wife of warlord, Prince Fabunmi Abe Adesoye of Igbo-Odo, a town later to be known as Oke-Mesi. Falola was a victim of the libidinous rascality of an Ajele (Resident) imposed on the town by Ibadan conquistadors. Tinubu, as Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and his allies are bent on rescuing democracy, the damsel that General Abdourahmane Tiani, leader of the putschists in Niger coveted. Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, had been toppled due to what was referred to as an obscure personnel dispute within Niger’s presidential guard. On a market day in 1876, Oyepetun, the Ibadan Ajele stationed at Imesi-Igbodo, infamous for his avarice, wickedness and general impression that he was one of the most irreverent and badly behaved Residents (Ajele) sent by the Ibadan to Ekiti land, had seized Falola right there in the marketplace, in fact at the front of the Oba’s palace.

GeneralTiani had exhibited same audacious belligerency. Persuaded that this was an affront of the highest order and a final denouement to the continued desecration of Ekitiland by the Ibadan, Prince Fabunmi stormed the home of the Ajele and beheaded him, alongside all his band of invaders. Another account of what led to the war claimed that rather than Oyepetun sexually abusing Falola, Fabunmi’s wife, Oyepetun’s men forcefully took food and palm wine from a woman who was friend to Fabunmi’s wife, leading to a fight. In retaliation, Aare Latosa, without giving his proposed expedition a second thought, angrily sent one of his military commanders, Ajayi Ogboriefon, to Igbo-Odo with a single expedition – decapitate Fabunmi and bring his head to Ibadan in a white calabash.

Like Latosa who did not subject the likely scenario in Ekiti to rigorous examination and the probable negative effects of his pugnacious decree, Tinubu too, riled by the temerity of General Tijani, is seeking the Nigerien soldier’s head on a platter. Eventually however, not only did Latosa’s post-hate sabre-rattling become a huge calamity to befall Yorubaland, the Ekitiparapo war, which was one of the most belligerently prosecuted wars in Yorubaland, with variety of munitions, became a massive albatross to the people, hampering integrationist efforts among the people and becoming one of the ancient fault lines of divisiveness among the people. Its capital intensiveness hampered the people’s economy due to the then sophisticated armaments deployed for the prosecution of the war. For the first time, warriors witnessed the usage of costly breech-loading rifles and sophisticated weapons like Winchester, Martini Henri, Sniders, Mauser.

Apart from negatively impacting the socio-economic and political history of Yoruba race of the 19th century, the war also inflicted huge human losses, leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. It also opened Yorubaland to the covert invasion of British colonial penetration. In the same vein, it inflicted significant and far-reaching consequences that led to the opening of the routes to the eventual loss of Ilorin to Alimi’s Fulani. Following from this is its encouragement of the eventual loss of other Yoruba kingdoms to aliens. Historians locate the unending atrocious relationship between the Ife and Modakeke to this peremptory order for the head of Fabunmi by Aare Latosa.

That fractious relationship was later responsible for the hundreds of deaths in the 2000s war between Ife and Modakeke. Modakeke, in the prosecution of the Ekitiparapo war, found themselves allies of Ibadan, deployed to fight the war while their Ife neighbours, fought alongside the Generals of Ekitiparapo. The war also led to Ibadan losing its erstwhile panjandrum role in Yorubaland as a result of this hasty decision by Latosa. Eventually, all Ibadan erstwhile dependencies were severed and granted autonomy by the colonial government who sneaked in on the pretext of seeking armistice. Eventually the Ibadan/Oyo forces that dared the Ekiti had to withdraw. Ogboriefon himself died in the thick of the war.

Last Friday, Tinubu sought the backing of the Nigerian parliament to fight war in Niger. It is alleged that some of the actions on which Tinubu sought senate approval had already been effectuated. For instance, the highly authoritative Wall Street Journal said that even before going to the parliament, he had ordered for Niger to be hit by total darkness. This was done by disconnecting the main transmission lines that provides 75% of Niger’s electricity from Nigeria, thus plunging the Nigerien presidential palace, towns and villages into blackouts. Even the deposed President Bazoum’s cell phone, said the journal, though still remained charged as at the time of the report, stood the risk of running out, leading to him being incommunicado. It is however gladsome that the senate refused this request to invade Niger by the Nigerian president.

The Ekitiparapo War was one of the wars that signified the ambivalent nature of wars. It perhaps was what led to the famous statement that it is only the beginning of a war that is known; no one knows its end. Like the American war against Afghanistan primed to last a few months but which eventually elasticized from 2001 to 2021, ending with the Taliban offensive overthrowing the Islamic Republic and establishing an Islamic Emirate, the Ekitiparapo war also frustrated all strategic permutations, just as the Afghan war did. That war became the longest in US’ military history, even lasting longer than the 20-year-old Vietnam War.

But why, like Aare Latosa, would Tinubu precipitate a war that he has no scientific binoculars to foresee where and when it was heading for? When General Ibrahim Babangida, on August 24, 1990, began similar deployment of 3,000 West African troops into the Liberian capital, Monrovia, as part of the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group, (ECOMOG) he too never had an idea of the number of persons he would propitiate to the god of leadership ego that suddenly seized him, nor the billions of dollars of Nigeria’s patrimony that would be sunk into the expedition. Envisaging that ECOMOG operation in Liberia would last for just six months, it later lasted for seven years, even expanding its frontiers into neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Till today, the justification given for ECOWAS’ intervention in the Liberian war has been variously faulted and became largely controversial. Some claim that Babangida merely got Nigeria and other African countries to help fight a war to keep his friend, Samuel Doe of Liberia, in office. While the ECOWAS community hung on to Article 16, of the 1981 Defence Protocol, which said that “the Head of State of the member under attack may request action or assistance from the Community,” it was said that Doe never requested the intervention of ECOWAS but merely demanded Babangida’s help. There was also no consensus to intervene, especially from Francophone African states. Indeed, countries like Cote d`Ivoire and Guinea, which were sympathetic towards and even actively supporting the NPFL, were miffed at the ECOMOG intervention. Cote D’Ivoire had always been Nigeria’s regional rival. Thus, while Doe was Babangida, Nigeria`s President’s bosom friend, Nigeria was to pay heavily through Charles Taylor`s killing of about 1,000 of her nationals in Monrovia in 1990, a list that included journalists Kris Imodibe and Tayo Awotunsin. So, while Nigeria was sympathetic to Doe, Taylor received support from Cote d`Ivoire and Burkino Faso as well as from France and Libya.

As the Babangida friendship war in Liberia dragged on, the operation became progressively dangerous, costly and protracted. By the time ECOMOG pulled out of Liberia in October,1999 Western powers didn’t seem to be aware and stood away from this former American colony. At a reception held in Abuja on the arrival of the last Nigerian ECOMOG soldiers in 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo said that Nigeria had lost at least 500 of its soldiers, several hundreds were wounded and a staggering sum of US $8 billion was wasted to the peacekeeping operation in Liberia. Obasanjo had concluded, “We will never know the number of Nigerian civilians who lost their lives in the crisis in Liberia.”

From his friends and foes, questions are being asked on why Tinubu suddenly acquired this sudden bellicosity and the reason he is prepared to commit Nigeria to another needless prosecution of war. Could the decision be an outcome of a sudden pounce on him, like the self-revelatory spirit that triggered the removal of subsidy on the day of his inauguration? Explaining his off-the-cuff, unscheduled and unprepared-for severance of the subsidy, the president had said, “I got to the podium, I was possessed with courage, and I said, ‘subsidy is gone’”. Was it the same possessing spirit that is responsible for this ominous throwing of Nigeria into another round of war?

Already, it is said that the military government in Niger had signed or is in the bid to sign an agreement with Russia’s Wagner PMC for the supply of Specialized defense services to repel Tinubu’s threat of military intervention. Wagner is said to have units in Libya, Mali, and Central African Republic and these military units will proceed to Niger, a republic with a population of 27,294,785, immediately with its 12 to13,000 Wagner fighters. As diplomatic relationship stands now, Niger has reportedly severed ties with Nigeria and Togo. Rumours have it that Algeria and Egypt, reputed to possess the strongest military strength in Africa, as well as Guinea, Burkina Faso, Libya, Chad, and Mali, are ready to stand with Niger, making this war a perfect replica of the Ekitiparapo Warand bonding of allies.

So, why is Tinubu angling for a war? There is this claim that Tinubu, in the bid to seek the west to legitimize his rule, especially with the judgment of the Presidential Election Court (PEPC) that may “bring anarchy” to Nigeria, is ready to be the lickspittle of the west, anyhow. Indications are rife that the US and the European Union needed an African front to carry their can and Tinubu is a ready tool for this. A military action from ECOWAS may stop Niger’s gravitation towards Russia. Uranium-rich Niger, in 2022, was responsible for 25.38% of EU’s supply, after Kazakstan, which owns world’s largest ounce of uranium. With the Russian uranium export suffering due to sanctions, France and the EU, with huge dependence on nuclear energy, need the sustenance of Niger Republic’s uranium to keep afloat.

The danger for America, which has spent about $500 million to arm and equip Niger’s military, said the Wall Street Journal, is that it may unwittingly be allowing Russia to pick up some of its most treasured drone bases, which are used to fly missions across the Sahara between Libya and Nigeria. Niger had been the centerpiece of America and Europe’s fight against the contagious spread in Africa’s Sahel of Islamic State and al Qaeda, through a spool spin. This spin is “across 3,000-mile semiarid territory on the southern shore of the Sahara that also includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad.” If Tinubu fights their war, sacrificing thousands of Nigerian soldiers in the process, EU and America would in turn rub his back by sustaining his life-long ambition to be Nigeria’s president. Don’t forget that the Tinubu government exhibited palpable fright when the EU cavalierly removed the legitimacy rug off his feet through the damning report it brought out on the election that ensured his presidency.

Unfortunately for Tinubu and his ECOWAS, the coup plotters of Niger have tremendous home support. Tinubu doesn’t have same at home on this war-baiting plan of his. Already, a group of northern senators in a release issued on Friday and signed by Sen. Suleiman Kawu Sumaila dissociated itself from Tinubu’s bellicose pursuit. While condemning the Niger coup, the group said it took exception to use of military force because “the consequences will be casualties among the innocent citizens who go about their daily business… (in) the seven northern states who share border with Niger Republic, namely Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Zamfara, Jigawa, Yobe and Borno.” The group thus covertly urged its colleagues in parliament, “to observe due diligence in invoking section 5 sub section (4) (a) and (b) of 1999 Nigerian Constitution as amended,” ostensibly by not giving go-ahead to Tinubu to prosecute the war.

As the senators said, geographically, seven Northern states share borders of 1,608 kilometers with Niger Republic. Senator Shehu Sanni also recently reminded Tinubu that about 3000 escapees from Boko Haram onslaughts are taking refuge in Nigerien refugee camps. If they could issue their own release too, the Nigerian Army, expected to prosecute the Tinubu war, would openly rebel against it. This is because a huge number of Nigerian military personnel, from headship to the recruits, are believed to share consanguinity with Niger, with their family members and relations based in Niger Republic. Indeed, many of our senators and House of Reps members are suspected to be citizens of Niger Republic. Ex-President Muhammadu Buhari never hid his consanguinity with Niger. Due to the porous borders and filial bonding between the two countries, a Nigerien boy who walks into, say Kano, schools therein and enters the civil service or the military, duds his actual citizenship and easily meshes into Nigeria.

For French-speaking Africa, the fight against France is a war of liberation. A respondent told the Wall Street Journal that “What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonizers.” Like Nigeria, Niger and other French-speaking African countries had been tied to the apron strings of their colonial masters. Unlike Nigeria, they have made up their minds to exit the servitude. Back here in Nigeria, the ground Tinubu is standing to declare this war is suffering a seismic shake.

The Tinubu declaration of war against Niger could be indicative of two, or even three, things about his presidency. One is that it could be yet another symptom of a peremptory, off-the-cuff, kick-and-follow governance that gives less consideration to the rigour of critical interrogation of issues. The Niger war declaration bears same hollow texture with the fuel subsidy removal. Second, the war may be Tinubu’s Sigidi signaling catastrophe for his government and for our dear country. Unless Tinubu beats a retreat and sticks to shuttle diplomacy with the Niger Republic junta, the war, which he has lost ab initio, even without firing a single bullet, will negatively define his administration. It is a calamity in the making. On a second thought, knowing the stuff that these Lagos politicians are made of, could the flaunt of bravado over Niger Republic, the request to the senate, the rejection and the protests in Niger Republic be a stage-managed choreography, part of the machinations of the Lagos boy to show the west that he tried his best, but his people rebelled against it? Curiouser and curiouser!

https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2023/08/06/tinubus-lost-war-in-niger-as-sigidi/

gerrardomendes:
You live in a country ruled by a criminal Yoruba man just because an Igbo man is not seen as being good enough to be president. What do you have to say about that. What's the difference between Coup d'etat and Ballot d'etat. Tinubu has taught Africans that power is not served a la carte.

DodadaKoKigbe:
For once, I agree with you.

Oblongata:
Congratulations to us all!

And to those calling BAT agbado, Ebola, etc
May I remind you all that the position of President of Nigeria is sacrosanct?

We must respect that seat even though you don't like the person occupying the seat.

It is not for now, it is for the honor of that seat even for decades to come.

How Niger go dey follow us call our President 'Ebola'? What insult to the country!

dettolgel:
Please white south Africans should leave the country for them let them run it down.

Zimbabwe did the same and then turn around to beg the white farmers to come back.

I don't know when people will learn.

ivolt:
Wagner slave, you will start crying next week.
I predict you will open hundreds of threads as the coupist are marched out like
common criminals.

You should have learnt by now that you are too ignorant and emotional to delve into international politics.
Such discussion is out of your league.

ivolt:
You are inconsequential.
Even if you are an officer, the highest you can do is resign out of cowardice.
There are tens of thousands of troops ready to remove the coup plotters.

There will be a lot of crying as Nigeria restore democracy in Niger next week.

helinues:
But UGM are allowed to shed Ndigbo's blood freely bah?

helinues:
When would some of you Obidients learn how to have a decorum?

In the square in central Niamey on Thursday, the anniversary of Niger’s independence from France, the mainly young men who gathered to demonstrate in favour of the military coup against President Mohamed Bazoum brought with them Russian flags and anti-French slogans.

It remained unclear whether the demonstration was spontaneous or organised to coincide with a speech by the coup leader Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani in which he decried the threat of interference by the west and regional powers led by Nigeria.

But the harnessing of anti-French – and more widely anti-foreign – sentiment has rapidly become a key element of how the coup is being framed by its leaders and supporters as the junta faces the threat of military intervention by the Ecowas regional grouping if Bazoum is not restored to power.

In the space of just over a week Niger has become the focus of a series of overlapping crises and issues that have spilled out from the instability of a coup-prone Sahel region destabilised by jihadi insurgencies, drawing in the biggest players in west Africa, with Nigeria – the most powerful Ecowas member – at the fore.

Niger, a recipient of substantial funding from the west and host of western military bases, has been thrust towards the region’s geopolitical frontline after countries including Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea have also succumbed to military takeovers and been courted by Russia.


And while it is highly probable that Tchiani and his fellow coup plotters moved against Bazoum for the most prosaic of self-serving reasons – the president’s threat to remove the general as the head of the presidential guard – the events in the capital, Niamey, have lifted the lid on wider discontents and tensions.


One is a lingering deep sense of hostility towards France over its post-colonial record in Francophone Africa, which is being stirred up to justify the coup.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has sought to represent himself breaking with France’s colonial history in Africa, disavowing the notion of Francafrique in favour of a new model of partnership, but long-lasting suspicions have been hard to shift.

A key issue is that despite the large amounts of aid and military assistance that have been channelled towards Niger from western countries, foreign cash flows have done little to visibly benefit the vast majority of young and impoverished Nigeriens who view the west’s support for Bazoum as business as usual for the country’s elites.

However, the coup leaders appear to have misjudged how their putsch would be received regionally and by the international community.

The biggest error, perhaps, was a misreading of a newly invigorated Ecowas determined not to replicate its weak response to other coups in the Sahel in the past few years. Among those who had noted a recent marked change in the bloc’s stance has been Alex Vines, the head of the Africa programme at the thinktank Chatham House who was recently in Abuja – where west African defence chiefs have been meeting.

Niger: hundreds of junta supporters gather in Niamey amid threat of military intervention – video
01:58
Niger: hundreds of junta supporters gather in Niamey amid threat of military intervention – video

“Even before this coup Ecowas was thinking about security arrangements the region needed to change both around the continued danger of radical islamists and more contention from puschists. Part of what Ecowas has been talking about was creating an effective anti-putsch force in the region, which is what Ecowas’s military chief of staffs have been discussing,” Vines says.

Particularly important, he argues, has been the political mood music in Nigeria, where President Bola Tinubu is “allergic to putschists, having had experience of being detained by them”.

Vines adds: “The other trigger point as seen from Abuja is the planned draw down of the Minusma [UN peacekeeping force] in Mali, which will end this year. Although it has not been effective it will create a further vacuum.”

It is a vacuum many see as ripe for exploitation by the likes of Russia and Wagner Group, which have already been heavily active in destabilising messages on social media that promote a neo-colonialist narrative aimed at France and other foreign actors in Niger.

It leaves open the question of next steps. On the military as well as the diplomatic fronts, it has been west African countries and Ecowas members taking the lead in missions to Niger, carrots alongside the stick of threatened force, offering an off-ramp for those behind the coup.

All of which, Vines argues, has been causing anxiety among Sahel states that have recently experienced their own coups and have warned – unconvincingly – that a military intervention would be seen as an act of war.

With the Ecowas ultimatum of restoring Bazoum to power, all options remain on the table for now.

Niger's coup leaders on Thursday evening announced they were ending the mandates of ambassadors to four countries, as they face international pressure to restore the democratically elected leader they ousted last week.

"The functions of the extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassadors of the Republic of Niger" to France, Nigeria, Togo and the United States "are terminated", one of the putschists said in a statement read on national television.

bur-bam/leg/cwl

The Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. For more information go to AFP.com.
© Agence France-Presse

https://www.barrons.com/news/niger-junta-ends-mandates-of-us-france-nigeria-togo-ambassadors-statement-97eabea8

Niger's military junta reportedly blocked French international news broadcasters France 24 and Radio France Internationale on Thursday amid continued unrest.

https://static.dw.com/image/66435497_906.jpg

A senior Nigerien official told the AFP news agency that the broadcasters were blocked "on the instructions of the new military authorities."

The French Foreign Ministry condemned the move on Thursday night.

"France reaffirms its constant engagement and determination in favor of freedom of expression, the press, and the protection of journalists," it said in a statement.

Anti-France protests continue
The junta's crackdown on French government-funded media came as pro-coup protests continued.

Thousands of people gathered in Niamey on what was also Niger's Independence Day. People held anti-France posters and waved Russian flags.

The crowd shouted "Down with France" and "Long live Russia, long live [Vladimir] Putin," among other things.

Tahirou Ibrahim Garka, a close ally of the deposed Nigerien president who previously held public positions, believes the protests do not reflect the sentiment of most Nigeriens.

"What you saw today is a manifestation organized by the the military," he told DW. "Most of them are the military who put on clothes like civilians."

Ahead of the protests, Paris had also asked Nigerien authorities to ensure the safety of the French Embassy after it was attacked by protesters last week.

"I think people who protest against France made a big mistake because it's not about France," Garka added.

"It's about our country. You know, a president who is democratic, democratically elected was taken hostage by somebody just because he got weapons."

Hundreds of coup supporters also took to the streets in Agadez, on the edge of the Sahara desert, and Filingue, the hometown of junta leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani.

ECOWAS delegation lands in Niamey
A delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also landed in Niamey on Thursday night.

This week, ECOWAS said it could stage an intervention if the junta in Niger does not reinstate democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum by Sunday, although it said military action was a "last resort."

Senegal said on Thursday it would send soldiers to join ECOWAS if it decided to intervene militarily in Niger.

"It is one coup too many," said Senegalese Foreign Minister Aissata Tall Sall, refering to the coups in Burkina Faso and Mali that also installed pro-Russia juntas.

https://www.dw.com/en/niger-blocks-french-media-as-pro-coup-protests-continue/a-66435532

A Ukrainian official has accused Moscow of orchestrating the coup in Niger, referring to alleged involvement as a “standard Russian tactic”.

Last Wednesday, President Mohamed Bazoum and his democratically elected government were removed by military leaders in the seventh military coup the country has seen in less than three years.

On Tuesday, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said Russia was behind the shocking takeover.

On the social media outlet X (formally known as Twitter), Podolyak wrote, “It is now absolutely clear that Russia is behind the so-called ‘military coup’ in Niger. It is a standard Russian tactic: to divert attention, seize the moment and expand the conflict.”

“Russia has a global scenario for provoking instability to undermine the global security order,” he said.

“Its time to draw the right conclusion: only the removal of [Russian President] Putin’s clan and sending Russia to the political rebirth can guarantee the inviolability of rules and stability to the world.”

The Kremlin said on Monday that the situation in Niger was “cause for serious concern” after the coup that was condemned by much of the world but welcomed by Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has extensive interests in Africa.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia called for all sides in Niger to show restraint, and for the fastest possible return to legal order.

Russia’s Wagner Group has not claimed responsibility for the coup but Prigozhin has hailed the military takeover.

Prigozhin’s fighters have played a significant role in many African states, to the dismay of the West, and most recently arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) ahead of a constitutional referendum.

In a recent audio message on the Wagner Group’s Telegram, Prigozhin[b] said what happened in Niger “is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonisers. With colonisers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago.”[/b]

He added: “Today, this is effectively gaining their independence. The rest will without doubt depend on the citizens of Niger and how effective governance will be, but the main thing is this: they have got rid of the colonisers.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/1/russia-responsible-for-niger-coup-says-top-ukrainian-official

People have been gathering at a square in central Niamey, the capital of Niger, to show their support for last week's military coup.

On the anniversary of the country's independence a coalition of civil society organisations called for people to turn up to denounce the sanctions imposed by the West African regional bloc, Ecowas. It says if President Mohamed Bazoum is not reinstated it could use force.

A sizeable crowd of mostly young men has shown up at independence square.

There are anti French slogans and a few Russian flags.

Despite this show of support for the men who overthrew the president, many in Niger are against the coup.

There is a view that it was a move by senior soldiers who were at risk of being replaced and losing their power.

But now as they seek to justify the power grab, anti-French sentiment is being whipped up.

It's a carbon copy of events in Mali and Burkina Faso where the coup leaders then strengthened ties with Russia.

Journalist Amaury Hauchard has been sharing stills and video from the demonstration in Niamey:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-66073088

HeeBraHim2:
Very funny and laughable thought from a one way thinker. Niger Republic will be defeated in less than 3 hours.

Ghana are sending their force, just like Nigeria, Benin, Liberia and so on... This is ECOWAS war and victory is certain.

Sanction alone will a lot of harm to Niger troops.... ECOWAS is going to attack them from all angles.

Sergio101:
Nigeria will really mess them up

Throwback:
Good!

The enemies of democracy who claim their mandate was stolen, but craved military rule as the alternative to their own candidate winning, would soon come here to tell us how Mali or Burkina-Faso will fight Nigeria for Niger Republic.

Those sanctions when applied altogether would cripple Niger within 2months.

TemplarLandry:
We ain't called the Giant of Africa for no reason.

I dedicate “Basquiat” by Asake to my beloved Nigeria. Great jam!

The President of Russia, President Vladimir Putin, has said his government is closely monitoring developments in Niger Republic following the ousting of President Mohamed Bazoum by the military currently headed by General Omar Tchiani.

The Russian government’s position on Wednesday comes two days after several Nigeriens marched out in Niamey to express solidarity with the coup plotters.

The irate crowd attacked a French Embassy building on Sunday while some were seen waving Russian flags.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) chaired by President Bola Tinubu, which condemned the military coup, had on Sunday threatened to use force against the soldiers that toppled the government of Mohamed if they don’t restore democracy within seven days.

But the military regime has remained adamant, warning against any foreign intervention on Niger’s territory.

It is apparently a tense situation in the country and among its neighbors in West Africa as evacuation plans by several countries have already begun while a no-fly zone has been imposed by ECOWAS.

Amid the development, Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, held a press briefing on current foreign policy issues on Wednesday.

Regarding Niger, she urged relevant stakeholders not to allow current developments to further deteriorate.

“We continue to closely follow the developments in Niger. It is very important not to allow the situation in the country to deteriorate further.

“We hope that the people of Niger will be able to successfully overcome this difficult period in their history,” she said.

At the moment, Russia seems to be having a good time bilaterally with African countries, especially with its Africa-Russia summit attended by over 42 African heads of state or political representatives, including Nigeria’s vice president, Kashim Shettima.

Describing African countries who attended the summit as “friends”, Zakharova said Russia believes Africa is committed “to jointly build a new, more just multipolar world order, based on the sovereign equality of nations and mutually beneficial cooperation.”

https://thewhistler.ng/coup-putin-says-monitoring-developments-after-niger-republic-citizens-waved-russian-flags/