The son of the former president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, was let go by a military court after being in jail for over five months.
Salem Bazoum went to Togo after presidents from nearby countries helped him get released.
He was taken to the president’s palace with his parents after the military took control in July.
His parents are still in jail, and the government has not agreed to let them go despite pressure from other countries.
The military court said that Mr Bazoum Jnr’s release is not final. He will have to go to court when he is asked to.
He was accused of helping to overthrow the government after the coup.
In October, the ruling military group claimed that the removed president and his family, along with two cooks and two security officials, tried to run away but did not succeed.
Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey went to Niger to help Mr. Bazoum Jnr leave the country, according to the tribunal’s statement.
Togo’s government said he is free, but did not say where he is.
Sierra Leone also tried to help get the ousted president’s son released, the statement said.
The Ecowas court said the Bazoum family’s arrest was unfair. They were told to go free, and Mr Bazoum was put back as president.
The military group has not followed the decision and has said that it will take up to three years for civilians to take over.
Gen Abdourahamane Tiani, the head of the presidential bodyguard, took control from Mr Bazoum in a coup. Ecowas and Western nations, including France, criticized the takeover.
The French soldiers left Niger last month because the junta told them to go.
Ecowas said it will keep punishing Niger until it sees the country making progress towards having a civilian government again.
The penalties have made food more expensive and there aren’t enough basic things in Niger anymore.
Tag: Mohamed Bazoum
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Son of ousted president of Niger set free by military junta
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Niger Junta opposes agreement to release overthrown president
The person in charge of Niger’s military has said no to letting the former president go free in return for lifting the sanctions on the country.
Ecowas, a group of countries in West Africa, offered to help after a meeting on Sunday.
It has asked many times for Mohamed Bazoum to be let go since he was put on house arrest in late July.
His family says they haven’t heard from him since he tried to escape from detention on 19 October.
On Sunday, leaders from Ecowas met to talk about the problems in the region. There have been military takeovers in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea in the past year, and there have been two attempted coups in other places recently.
Ecowas keeps asking Niger’s military leaders to bring back civilian government as soon as they can. The group said they would send soldiers and stop trading with the country, but it didn’t work.
On Sunday, the alliance joined with local and international partners to ask the junta to let Mr. Bazoum go
It also asked the military leaders to make the change to civilian rule happen faster. Right now, they plan for it to take three years.
Ecowas did not say how long a transition period should be.
Later today, the military leader of Niger, Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani, told the state broadcaster RTN that Mr Bazoum will not be set free.
Gen Tchiani agreed to make the change happen faster, but didn’t say how much faster.
Ecowas said it will keep its penalties in place for Niger after the general spoke.
However, it said it would make a group to work with Niger’s military leaders on figuring out a plan for change. Depending on how those discussions go, the restrictions would slowly be lifted.
On October 19, Mr. Bazoum and his family, along with some other people, tried to use a helicopter to escape from being confined, but they were not successful.
Relatives said they last spoke to him the day before he planned to escape.
Since the takeover, the family members have talked about the “cruel” way they have been treated by the new military government. -
Former Niger leader requests assistance from Ecowas court
Former Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum has asked the court of the West African bloc Ecowas to set him free, according to his lawyer.
A legal case was filed in court on Monday asking for Mr. Bazoum to be freed and made president again. This is because he was arrested without reason and his freedom to move was taken away after the coup in July. His lawyer, Seydou Diagne, said all this.
“We are asking for. ” According to the AFP news agency, someone said that because political rights were violated, Niger should be told to give power to President Bazoum right away. President Bazoum should keep using the power until his term is over.
The military junta is holding his wife and son, and their names are mentioned in the application, according to the Associated Press.
Ecowas said they might use military force if talking doesn’t work to help Mr. Bazoum become the leader again. -
Overthrown president of Niger Mohamed Bazoum “determined to fight for democracy” – Mohamed Bazoum’s daughter
Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum was kicked out of power by a coup on July 26 and has been kept in custody since then. But his daughter wrote a letter in a French newspaper called Le Figaro, telling us that her father won’t quit, and he’s very determined to protect democracy.
In the letter, Zazia Bazoum Mohamed, who lives in Paris, calls for the release of her father, held captive in the presidential palace, and the “restoration of constitutional order” in Niger.
She recalls that her father was “democratically elected”, that “he is the people’s choice”, and believes that he “has made a positive mark, both nationally and internationally”.
“He has made the fight against corruption and bad governance his main battleground”, she continues, underlining the progress made on the economic front.
“Today, taken hostage with his family, he is not resigning because he holds democratic values dear and has always fought against military regimes,” she adds. “He fights and sacrifices himself for the future of our dear country, Niger, for the Sahel and for the whole of West Africa”.
She points out that her father could have given up, “spared his family this suffering” and “found an important international position”. “But he decided to fight to safeguard democracy in Niger”.
The soldiers who overthrew President Bazoum, who is due to be elected in 2021, mainly justified their coup by the “deteriorating security situation”.
His daughter denounces these “totally fallacious” arguments.
“All the terrorist attacks denounced by the hostage-takers took place before my father was president and, better still, all the hostage-takers and their accomplices were already part of the system they denounce”, she writes.
What’s more, she points out, “Since they took my country, hostage, we have watched helplessly and sadly as terrorist attacks have increased at an alarming rate: more than seven attacks in three weeks, with many deaths”.
The countries of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) demand Mohamed Bazoum’s immediate release and reinstatement, which the military is refusing, making it difficult to find a solution to the crisis.
Ecowas has so far been unsuccessful in his attempts to use diplomatic channels while threatening military intervention.
“This injustice against my family and against Niger makes me wonder if there isn’t a link with the fact that Niger was due to become an oil-exporting country in three months’ time”, says Zazia Bazoum Mohamed.
According to her, “the hostage-takers and their accomplices know that no one will benefit personally from the oil windfall” with her father at the head of the country. Mohamed Bazoum “will always ensure that this wealth benefits the people of Niger and not an elite that believes itself superior to Nigeriens”, she assures.
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Civilian prime minister from Niger visits Chad
The civilian prime minister appointed by Niger’s junta, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, along with two other members of the ruling military council, embarked on a visit to Chad on Tuesday to engage in discussions with interim President Gen Mahamat Idriss Déby.
Mr. Zeine, recognized as the diplomatic representative of the military administration, conveyed that his country was presently under a “transitional” government and restated the junta’s willingness to engage in dialogue.
However, he emphasized that the junta would engage in discussions solely with “partners” who uphold his nation’s sovereignty.
Chadian President Déby has been actively attempting to mediate between the Niger junta and the ousted government of President Mohamed Bazoum.
Chad has also declared its non-involvement in any military actions directed against the leaders of the Niger coup.
Concurrently, the heads of the armed forces from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are set to convene in Accra, the capital of Ghana, on Thursday and Friday to deliberate on the situation in Niger.
These military leaders reportedly plan to strategize a course of action for potential military intervention in Niger, aiming to restore power to Mr. Bazoum.
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Evidence for Bazoum’s prosecution for high treason secured – Niger junta
The Niger junta raised the stakes in its brinkmanship against important neighbours in West Africa who have sworn to restore constitutional order in the coup-torn nation on Sunday by claiming it had acquired evidence to prosecute the country’s former President Mohamed Bazoum for “high treason.”
The statement was made by the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), the military council that overthrew the government in July. “The Nigerien government has to date, gathered the necessary evidence to prosecute the deposed president and his local and foreign accomplices before the competent national and international authorities for high treason and undermining internal and external security of Niger,” the statement read.
Since late last month, when Bazoum was overthrown in a coup d’état by the presidential guard, Niger has been plunged in political upheaval. A volatile region of Africa plagued by coups and militant fanaticism was once again in the dark after the coup in July.
One of the few democracies still in existence in the Sahel was Niger, which is located at its centre.
Following Niger’s independence from France in 1960, there were years of military coups, which came to a stop with Bazoum’s election victory in 2021.
Following the coup, the leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposed sanctions and gave the military junta a week to resign or face possible military intervention.
However, the military junta in Niger has received support from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea, three additional West African countries that have all recently undergone military coups, raising the possibility that the conflict could escalate into a crisis for the entire region.
Bazoum has said that the junta has denied him “all human contact” and hasn’t given him food or medicine.
The CNSP refuted the claims in a statement, claiming that the expelled leader frequently consults his doctor, with the most recent visit occurring on Saturday.
The statement said that the doctor raised no concerns regarding Bazoum’s health.
West African leaders have intensified their criticism of the coup organisers in Niger and commanded the “activation and deployment” of a regional standby army to help the nation return to constitutional order.
A source told CNN on Sunday that the regional political and economic union known as ECOWAS announced the formation of a parliamentary committee that it intends to dispatch to Niger to meet with coup leaders.
The insider also stated that on Monday, committee members will initially communicate through Zoom before meeting with coup leaders, but she did not specify when this would occur. The source further stated that the parliamentary committee had 12 members and was presided over by Ahmed Idris Wase, the first deputy speaker of the ECOWAS parliament from Nigeria.
ECOWAS previously gave coup leaders until August 6 to release and restore Bazoum as president and hand over authority, failing which they would be subject to potential military intervention.
According to ECOWAS, a separate effort to meet with the Nigerien military junta on Tuesday with the African Union and the United Nations “was aborted” when the military leadership in Niamey informed them of “their unavailability to receive the tripartite delegation.”
In the meantime, in the capital city of Guinea, Conakry, self-proclaimed Niger defence chief Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou met with Mamadi Doumbouya, the head of the junta and interim president of Guinea. In 2021, Guinea too saw a military takeover.
At the meeting on Saturday, Doumbouya declared, “We are pan-African, and we will always be there.”
Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, the newly appointed military chief of Niger, has also appealed to Mali for assistance despite Mali’s significantly diminished military might.
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UN worried about health of overthrown president of Niger
The elected president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, who has been under house arrest for more than two weeks, is concern to the US and the UN.
“We are deeply concerned about his health, his personal safety, and the personal safety of his family.” A representative for the US State Department said,
The leaders of the coup in Niger had been given till Sunday to abdicate by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).
Officials from Ecowas will meet later to deliberate the next steps.
Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the UN, expressed his concern about the family’s allegedly “deplorable living conditions” among other things.
On July 26th, Mr. Bazoum was dismissed.
Earlier, according to Mr. Bazoum’s party, he and his family were being held in “cruel” and “inhumane” conditions, according to Reuters.
Since that time, Niger has been governed by a military junta, with Mr. Bazoum being held at the presidential mansion. Regarding the condition of the ousted leader, junta members have remained silent.
Washington reported that on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Mr. Bazoum to reassure him of the US’s continued support.
According to Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the US State Department, “as time passes and he is held in isolation, it’s a situation that is of growing concern to us.”
In a statement, Mr. Bazoum’s political party, PNDS-Tarayya, asserted that he and his family lacked access to running water, power, fresh food, and medical care.
The declaration confirmed earlier remarks made by the elected prime minister of Niger, Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou, who claimed that Mr. Bazoum was being held without electricity or water together with his wife and son.
Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, the commander of the presidential guard, claims to be in charge of Niger at the moment, while Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, the former finance minister, was named the country’s new prime minister by the military coup.
Niger’s airspace has also been shut down by the new military government till further notice, citing Ecowas’ “threat of military intervention.”
France refuted claims made by the military junta of Niger on Wednesday that it was attempting to undermine the nation.
The leaders of the coup alleged that French planes had violated national airspace and that French soldiers had released jihadist prisoners so they could assault military targets.
The French military and foreign ministries issued a joint statement, which was cited by AFP news agency, in which they categorically denied the latest false allegations made by the putschists in Niger.
The military of Niger had approved the flight, they noted.
The US and France both maintain military installations in Niger as part of efforts to dismantle Islamist organisations active throughout the region.
After being ordered to leave Mali due to a coup, Niger became the major base for French forces.
Two representatives of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu met with the junta in the nation’s capital, Niamey, as part of diplomatic attempts.