While the chiefs of staff of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting on Thursday August 17 and Friday August 18 in Accra, the capital of Ghana, drew the outlines of a possible military operation in Niger, supporters of Mohamed Bazoum were chomping at the bit. Not only is an intervention to free the head of state, detained since July 26 by General Tiani’s men, slow to materialize, but the crisis, they think, could have been settled a long time ago. The world is able to confirm that a request for intervention was sent to the French present in Niamey in the hours following the coup d’etat by the head of the presidential guard, and that this request was seriously considered.
It was the putschists themselves who affirmed this on the night of July 30 to 31. Reading a statement on national television, Amadou Abdramane, colonel-major of the air force who had become the spokesman for the junta, declared that evening that “in its line of action going in the direction of finding ways and means to intervene militarily in Niger, France, with the complicity of certain Nigeriens, held a meeting at the headquarters of the National Guard of Niger, to obtain the necessary political and military authorizations”.
French strikes allowed
During this meeting, continued the mouthpiece of the putschists, Hassoumi Massaoudou, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mohamed Bazoum acting as interim Prime Minister, signed a document which “authorizes the French partner to carry out strikes within the presidential palace in order to free the president of the Republic of Niger taken hostage”. A similar text was also initialed “in the name of the Chief of Defense Staff”by Colonel-Major Midou Guirey, commander of the National Guard of Niger, according to the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP).
A close friend of President Bazoum confirms it: the request, mentioned by the putschists, did indeed exist. “When we understood, in the first hours, that it was really a coup d’etat, the interim Prime Minister Massaoudou asked, quite normally, the support of Francesays this adviser who requested anonymity. France requested that there be a written authorization. »
According to several French and African sources, Nigerien soldiers were then preparing to launch the assault to free Mohamed Bazoum. Meanwhile, at the presidential palace, the elected head of state and Abdourahamane Tiani were talking, one after the other, with the former president, Mahamadou Issoufou (2011-2021), called in disaster to play the mediators. But the former head of state, although very close to the officer he himself appointed head of the presidential guard twelve years earlier, failed.
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