A DAY after troops seized President Mamadou Tandja and suspended Niger’s constitution, the country’s new military junta identified its leader as a colonel in the army.
A group calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy said it was being led by Salou Djibo, hours after imposing a curfew and announcing the closure of the country’s borders.
On Thursday, armed soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Niamey, leaving at least four people dead. Mr Tandja, who has led the uranium-rich West African country since April 1999, was kidnapped and brought to an as yet undisclosed location.
A statement was read on state TV by coup leaders, saying all institutions were suspended before calling for a restoration of “democracy and good governance”.
The African Union (AU), France and Ecowas – the regional bloc of West African states – all condemned the coup, while the top AU executive, Jean Ping, said it “demands a quick return to constitutional order”.
However, given the country’s recent history, “the fact that a coup took place is not surprising at all”, said Dr Kathryn Sturman of the South African Institute of International Affairs. Indeed, most coups follow periods of bad governance and rampant corruption, added Rolake Akinola a senior analyst on West Africa with Control Risks, a London-based research group.
Niger has had three military coups since the 1990s, and tension has been brewing since August, when the president changed the constitution to allow himself to rule for longer than the two-term limit allowed. Ecowas took the unusual step of suspending Niger, while the EU froze all non-humanitarian support at a time when the country is in the midst of a dire economic and humanitarian crisis.
According to local reports, there were no outward signs of a military takeover in the capital yesterday, although military music was being played on the radio. A wrestling programme replaced the evening news broadcast on state television.
In Washington DC, state department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mr Tandja may have invited his own fate by “trying to extend his mandate in office”. The US does not condone violence, he said, but “clearly we think this underscores that Niger needs to move ahead with the elections and the formation of a new government”.
However, “if the leaders of the coup feel that they are the only ones able to rule the country, they will have the option of blaming political parties for the chaos, and impose military rule, backed by a forfeit election”, said Sylvain Touati of the French Institute for International Relations in Paris.
This has been an all too common occurrence in the region recently. In Guinea, a junta seized power in December 2008 after the death of its long-time dictator, only for the junta leader to go into voluntary exile after he survived an assassination bid a year later.
Although poor, Niger produced about 7 per cent of the global uranium supply in 2008. Paris-based Areva plans to start operating a mine in Niger’s northern Agadez region in 2012, which it is hoped will double the country’s output.