APA-Niamey (Niger) – President Mohamed Bazoum has been in detention with members of his family since the July 26 coup which brought the military junta to power in Niamey.
After being detained for almost three months, Niger’s deposed head of state has tried in vain to escape from his place of detention, the military regime claimed on Thursday.
“The deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, accompanied by his family, his two cooks and two security guards, tried to escape from his place of detention,” the junta said in a statement, stressing that the people who helped him in the failed bid to flee had been arrested.
The junta said the public prosecutor in charge of the case has already begun an investigation into the incident.
Mohamed Bazoum, 63 has never buckled to pressure by the new authorities to officially resign as Niger’s head of state.
According to Niger’s junta authorities the plan to escape was to take him first to a hideout on the outskirts of Niamey, the country’s capital.
From there, the deposed president would ”board a helicopter belonging to a foreign power,” (which was not named) to Nigeria, Niger’s neighbour, which champions economic and political sanctions by the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The West African grouping, which wants Bazoum reinstated at all costs, is not ruling out the use of force, although it prefers diplomatic pressure on General Abdourahamane Tiani, president of the National Council for the Protection of the Homeland (CNSP) and former head of the presidential guard under Bazoum and his predecessor Mahamadou Issoufou.
Niger’s military authorities denounced the “irresponsible attitude” of Bazoum, whose whereabouts remain unknown, but said they were “reassuring national and international opinion of (their) firm determination to bring the transition (which General Tiani says will last a maximum of three years) to a successful conclusion, in accordance with the aspirations of the dignified and sovereign people of Niger.”
ODL/te/lb/as/APA