Military leaders of Niger Republic have warned President Bola Tinubu and other ECOWAS leaders not to pursue their plans of military intervention in their country as they weekend made moves to draw Russia’s support to defend their country.
Besides, Russia’s renegade private army, the Wagner group which has endorsed the coup has offered help to the putschists.
Rebuffing the ECOWAS plans for military intervention, the Niger Republic’s military leaders in a statement read on Niger national television warned the regional body not to send troops to their country, saying it is an attempt to start a war against Niger.
“The objective of the ECOWAS meeting is to approve a plan of aggression against Niger through an imminent military intervention in Niamey in collaboration with other African countries that are non-members of ECOWAS, and certain Western countries,” Aljazeera quoted the military spokesman, Colonel Amadou Abduramane, to have said.
Abduramane called on Russia to help Niger with soldiers and equipment against the threat of military intervention by ECOWAS.
He said they were ready to defend their country from the attacks that he suspected ECOWAS would launch on the country.
He also called on the citizens to come out and hold a demonstration to support them.
Russia has troops in Mali, a neighbour of Niger, which has caused France and the United Nations to withdraw their peacekeeping troops from the country.
Russia’s Wagner mercenary boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who remains active despite leading a failed mutiny against the Russian army’s top brass last month, has hailed the coup as good news and offered his fighters’ services to bring order.
Niger has been a security partner of France, and the United States, which have used it as a base to fight an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s wider Sahel region.
Crowd burns French embassy
Meanwhile, besides the threat of military intervention by ECOWAS, a crowd gathered on Sunday outside the French Embassy in Niamey, Niger’s capital, burned French flags and stoned the former colonial power’s mission, drawing tear gas from police.
In a swift reaction, France condemned the violence against its diplomatic mission and pledged to react strongly to any attack on its nationals or interests.
“The president will not tolerate any attack against France and its interests,” President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement, specifying that it would respond to attacks against French diplomats, armed forces or businesses.
In a separate statement, the Foreign Affairs ministry condemned all violence against diplomatic missions and called on Nigerien authorities to protect the French mission as required under international law.
