The Niger Republic military junta has appointed the country’s former Minister of Economy, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, as the new prime minister.
This comes barely two weeks after the military ousted the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, and took over power in Niger.
The coup plotter announced this on television on Monday night.
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Nigerien media reports that Lamine Zeine was an ex-Minister of Economy and Finance in the cabinet of former President Mamadou Tandja, who was ousted in 2010, and currently works as an economist for the African Development Bank in Chad.
An ultimatum from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to the coup plotters to reinstate Bazoum expired over the weekend.
DAILY POST reports that ECOWAS, a regional political and economic union of 15 countries located in West Africa, has threatened to restore democracy in Niger by force.
Meanwhile, Junta leaders in Niger have refused to let a senior US official meet the West African country’s ousted president and rejected her calls to restore democracy after last month’s coup.
Victoria Nuland, the US acting deputy secretary of state, described “frank and difficult” talks during a two-hour meeting in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, on Monday, as the rebellious commanders again refused to give in to international pressure to stand down.
Nuland told reporters that she met with officers including Brig Gen Moussa Salaou Barmou, who has been named the new military chief of staff. But the junta did not respond to her requests to meet Niger’s self-proclaimed new leader, Gen Abdourahamane Tiani – or the detained elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, who is under house arrest and claims he is being held hostage.
“These conversations were extremely frank and at times quite difficult,” Nuland told reporters by telephone as she prepared to fly out of Niamey.
Her comments came as the West African bloc, Ecowas, prepares to meet on Thursday after the coup leaders ignored a deadline to reinstate Bazoum – a move the bloc had earlier warned could lead it to authorise a military intervention.
Nuland described the mutinous officers as unreceptive to the US urging them to return the country to civilian rule.
“This was a first conversation in which the United States was offering its good offices if there is a desire on the part of the people who are responsible for this to return to the constitutional order,” she said. “I would not say that we were in any way taken up on that offer.”
She said she also warned there would be consequences for Niger’s relations with the US if the junta does not restore Bazoum or follows the path of neighbouring Mali in calling in Russia’s Wagner mercenaries.
“I hope they will keep the door open to diplomacy. We made that proposal. We’ll see,” she said.
She said Barmou was well acquainted with cooperation with the United States through his past involvement with special forces.
“The people who have taken this action here understand very well the risks to their sovereignty when Wagner is invited in,” Nuland said.
Despite the international pressure, coup leaders have seemed unwilling to back down, and on Sunday night, they closed Niger’s airspace until further notice, citing the threat of military intervention.
