ABUJA, Nigeria –
The navy authorities that seized energy in Niger has accused United Nations Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres of “obstructing” the West African nation’s full participation on the UN’s annual assembly of world leaders with the intention to appease France, Niger’s former colonizer, and its allies.
The choice to not enable the junta’s envoy to talk on the UN Basic Meeting in New York might “undermine any effort to finish the disaster in our nation,” Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, a spokesman for the officers who deposed Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum in a July coup, stated late Friday.
The junta had needed Niger’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Bakary Yaou Sangare, who was made international minister after the coup, to talk on its behalf on the Basic Meeting.
Nonetheless, Bakary didn’t obtain credentials to attend after the deposed Nigerien authorities’s international minister despatched the world physique a letter “informing of the top of capabilities of Mr. Bakary as everlasting consultant of Niger to the United Nations,” Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesperson, stated.
The junta spokesman accused the previous minister, Hassoumi Massoudou, of “excessive treason” and alleged that Guterres’ solely curiosity was “retaining with the willpower of France and the European Union to punish Niger and its folks in any respect prices for his or her patriotic selection.” Abdramane additionally accused the West African regional bloc ECOWAS of interference.
“With the complicity of France and the 2 French-speaking heads of state of ECOWAS, the secretary basic of the United Nations went astray within the train of his mission by obstructing the complete participation of Niger within the work of the 78th Session of the UN Basic Meeting,” Abdramane stated.
The junta appointed civilians to function prime minister and in another posts as a part of a transitional authorities that it stated could stay in place for as much as three years, however ECOWAS and international powers akin to France nonetheless acknowledge Bazoum as Niger’s rightful chief.
The deposed president appealed to a regional courtroom this week to order his launch and reinstatement as president. Bazoum took workplace in 2021 within the nation’s first switch of energy between elected leaders for the reason that nation’s independence from France in 1960.
ECOWAS has stated it considers a navy intervention an possibility for restoring Bazoum as president.