The deadline has arrived Sunday for Niger’s military junta to reinstate the country’s ousted president, but the West Africa regional bloc that has threatened a military intervention faces prominent appeals to pursue more peaceful means.
Neighboring Nigeria’s Senate on Saturday pushed back against the plan by the regional bloc known as ECOWAS, urging Nigeria’s president, the bloc’s current chair, to explore options other than the use of force. ECOWAS can still move ahead, as final decisions are taken by consensus by member states, but the warning on the eve of Sunday’s deadline raised questions about the intervention’s fate.
Algeria and Chad, non-ECOWAS neighbors with strong militaries in the region, both have said they oppose the use of force or won't intervene militarily, and neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso - both run by juntas - have said an intervention would be a “declaration of war” against them, too. “I’m here to support the military. We are against . We will fight to the end. We do not agree with what France is doing against us. We are done with colonization,” said Ibrahim Nudirio, one of the residents on patrol.It was not immediately clear on Sunday what ECOWAS will do next.
The coup is a major blow to the United States and allies who saw Niger as the last major counterterrorism partner in the Sahel, a vast area south of the Sahara Desert where jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have been expanding their range and beginning to threaten coastal states like Benin, Ghana and Togo.
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