Junta claims they have control of Niger after coup

A JUNTA that seized power in a coup in the west African nation of Niger named a platoon commander as its leader, hours after soldiers announced on state TV their group was in charge of the uranium-rich country.

Former colonial ruler France and the African Union both condemned Thursday’s coup, when armed soldiers stormed the presidential palace in a hail of gunfire during broad daylight and kidnapped the country’s strongman leader. The whereabouts of President Mamadou Tandja remained unknown Friday.

In a statement, the junta calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy said it was being led by Salou Djibo, a commander of a platoon based near the capital.

The junta has said it wants to turn Niger into “an example of democracy and of good governance”. A diplomat in the region described the coup’s leaders as being part of an Army faction disillusioned with Tandja for violating his constitutionally mandated term limit.

The country has become increasingly isolated since then, with the 15-nation regional bloc of West African states suspending Niger from its ranks and the US government cutting off non-humanitarian aid and imposing travel restrictions on some government officials.

However, there are also fears the military group could attempt to cling to power in Niger, as the junta in Guinea did following a December 2008 coup. The coup leader there first promised to hold elections in which he would not run, only to later suggest he may have changed his mind. Only a year later, he went into voluntarily exile after his aide-de-camp tried to assassinate him.

The African Union’s top executive, Jean Ping, condemned the coup in Niger and said the AU “demands a quick return to constitutional order”.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said France “condemns any seizure of power by non-constitutional methods”.

US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Tandja may have invited his own fate by “trying to extend his mandate in office”.

“Both the US and The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) have expressed our concerns about that,” Mr Crowley said, adding the US does not defend the violent takeover.

In their broadcast on state TV, the soldiers said the country was under a curfew and all its borders have been sealed. Even the private plane of the Senegalese foreign minister was prevented from landing in Niger by the Army, said Senegalese government spokesman Bamba Ndiaye. The minister had been dispatched by Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, whom ECOWAS named as mediator for Niger’s political crisis just days before.

On Friday, shops in the capital were open and traffic was normal.

It was unclear where Niger’s president was.

Radio France Internationale reported the soldiers had politely escorted Tandja outside to a waiting car, which drove him toward a military camp on the outskirts of the capital.

A diplomat in neighbouring Burkina Faso said the mutinous soldiers had been led by Col Abdoulaye Adamou Harouna, the former aide-de-camp of Niger’s previous coup leader Maj Daouda Mallam Wanke.