APA-Niamey (Niger) – At the head of a large delegation, the number two of Niger’s National Council for the Protection of the Homeland (CNSP) traveled to Bamako on Wednesday, August 2, to meet with Malian authorities.
General Salifou Modi, former head of the Nigerien army, was seen on the tarmac at Niamey airport on Wednesday morning.
The second-in-command of CNSP, the junta in power in Niger since Wednesday, July 26, following a coup against democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, was en route to Mali.
He was accompanied by several CNSP officials, including Colonel Ahmad Sidian, deputy commander of the Niger National Guard.
The reasons for the trip, the first by a senior CNSP official abroad, are not yet known but it comes forty-eight hours after Mali and Burkina Faso pledged their support to the new rulers in Niamey.
Bamako and Ouagadougou condemned the economic and financial sanctions imposed on Niger on Sunday, July 30, by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and warned the regional organisation against any use of force to restore Mohamed Bazoum as democratically elected president.
The juntas of Mali and Burkina Faso warned that any military intervention would be “tantamount to a declaration of war against them and would result in their withdrawal from the regional bloc.
After Bamako, General Modi is expected in Ouagadougou for talks with the young captain Ibrahim Traoré, who was the first West African head of state to call for support for Niger’s junta.
AC/lb/as/APA