Nigerian non secular leaders arrived in Niger on Saturday 12 August 2023 to fulfill members of the army who seized energy final month, sources near the regime and the delegation instructed AFP.
Newly appointed Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine obtained the delegation on the capital’s Diori Hamani airport, Niger’s ANP press company reported. The delegation is made up of Muslim non secular leaders and headed by Sheikh Bala Lau, chief of the Izala Salafist motion in Nigeria, ANP reported.
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A supply near the delegation instructed AFP the group had left on their mediation mission with the consent of Nigerian chief Bola Tinubu, who’s at the moment president of the West African bloc ECOWAS.
“The clerical delegation is at the moment in Niamey on the mandate of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to douse the stress created by the prospect of army intervention by ECOWAS,” mentioned the supply, talking on situation of anonymity.
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“The clerics are in Niamey to elucidate to the junta leaders that Nigeria will not be combating Niger and that the selections taken on Niger aren’t Nigeria’s however these of ECOWAS as a regional bloc,” the supply mentioned.
Lau had earlier within the week led a delegation of clerics who met with Tinubu in his workplace in Nigeria’s capital, the place the mission was mentioned, the supply mentioned. The Financial Neighborhood of West African States (ECOWAS) has authorized the deployment of a “standby pressure to revive constitutional order” in Niger as quickly as attainable.
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However a disaster assembly set to happen on Saturday to handle the coup, which noticed President Mohamed Bazoum deposed by members of his guard on July 26, was suspended indefinitely.
ECOWAS to supply particulars on the pressure
ECOWAS has but to supply particulars on the pressure or a timetable for motion, and the leaders have emphasised they nonetheless desire a peaceable answer. After the coup, the bloc gave the army leaders a deadline of final Sunday to reinstate Bazoum, who’s being held on the presidential palace in Niamey or face the potential use of pressure.
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Thus far, the coup leaders have remained defiant, and the ultimatum handed with out motion. The specter of a army intervention has proved extremely divisive amongst ECOWAS members and different African nations, cautious of sparking a battle with an unpredictable end result.
An try this week to ship a joint group of ECOWAS, UN and African Union representatives to Niamey was rejected by the coup leaders.
bur-bam/lcm/jj© Agence France-Presse
