Regional countries are facing a crisis of legitimacy as they run out of options and time to restore democratic rule in Niger after soldiers ousted the president last month, say analysts.
Defence chiefs from the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, are meeting in Ghana Thursday to discuss Niger's crisis after a deadline passed for mutinous soldiers to release and reinstate President Mohamed Bazoum or face military intervention. Bazoum was overthrown in July and remains under house arrest with his wife and son in the capital, Niamey.
"ECOWAS has few good options ... particularly as the seems unwilling for the moment to cede to outside pressure," said Andrew Lebovich, a research fellow with the Clingendael Institute, a think tank. "An intervention could backfire and damage the organization in numerous ways, while a failure to extract major concessions from the could weaken the organization politically at an already fragile time," he said.
But on Thursday, Abdel-Fatau Musah, the ECOWAS commissioner for peace and security, told reporters that the bloc was working with the United Nations on Niger's situation and didn't "need any approval from the Security Council to find a solution to the crisis." On Tuesday, at least 17 Nigerien soldiers were killed and nearly two dozen wounded in the Tillaberi region in the biggest attack by jihadis in six months. Former militants have told The AP that active jihadis are leveraging the coup to move around more freely and plan further violence while Niger's security forces are distracted in Niamey and Western assistance has halted.
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