elected president mohamed bazoum is fast approaching. west african bloc ecowas has threatened to use military force if it isn t met. but political leaders in nigeria, west africa s most powerful nation, are urging their government to pursue diplomatic rather than military options. niger s prime minister has been in paris saturday, meeting lawmakers and greeting protesters outside the nigerian embassy. he has dismissed pro coup protests taking place in his country. earlier, i spoke with alexis akwagyiram, managing editor at the news website semafor africa. thank you for being here. there is a lot of talk about. first, i want to start with this seven day deadline given by this group of west african leaders to reinstate the democratic government there in niger. that deadline is set to expire in really a matter of hours now, coming up on sunday. what do you expect will happen when that deadline expires? so i strongly expect that when the deadline expires,
alexis, thank you for being here. there is a lot of talk about. first of all, i want to start with this seven day deadline given by this group of west african leaders to reinstate the democratic government there in niger. that deadline is set to expire in, really, a matter of hours now, coming up on sunday. what do you expect will happen when that deadline expires? so, i strongly expect that when the deadline expires, we won t see any fireworks. there ll probably be more efforts behind the scenes to pursue a diplomatic solution because, ultimately, ecowas does not want a full on conflict. it really doesn t want that. and we ll see more efforts to try and find a way to make this work. i mean, ultimately, that seven day ultimatum that was issued said after a week, then all options would be on the table that includes the option of force. but i think ultimately, the regional body will want to reserve the use of
we won t see any fireworks. there will probably be more efforts behind the scenes to pursue a diplomatic solution, because ultimately, ecowas does not want a full on conflict. it really doesn t want that. and we will see more efforts to try and find a way to make this work. ultimately, that seven day ultimatum that was issued said after a week, then all options would be on the table. that includes the option of force. but i think ultimately, the regional body will want to reserve the use of force as a last resort. they won t want to do that initially. what other options are on the table? what else could ecowas do to try to pressure this junta to return the control to the democratic leader? there are a number of levers they can pull. one is to just make life as difficult as possible. for example, the giant southern neighbour, nigeria,
alexis, thank you for being here. there is a lot of talk about. there is a lot to talk about. first, i want to start with this seven day deadline given by this group of west african leaders to reinstate the democratic government there in niger. that deadline is set to expire in really a matter of hours now, coming up on sunday. what do you expect will happen when that deadline expires? so i strongly expect that when the deadline expires, we won t see any fireworks. there will probably be more efforts behind the scenes to pursue a diplomatic solution, because ultimately, ecowas does not want a full on conflict. it really doesn t want that. and we will see more efforts to try and find a way to make this work. ultimately, that seven day ultimatum that was issued said after a week, then all options would be on the table. that includes the option of force. but i think ultimately, the regional body will want to reserve the use of force as a last resort.
leaders in niger to reinstate elected president mohamed bazoum is fast approaching. west african bloc ecowas has threatened to use military force if it isn t met. but political leaders in nigeria, west africa s most powerful nation, are urging their government to pursue diplomatic rather than military options. niger s prime minister has been in paris saturday, meeting lawmakers and greeting protestors outside the nigerien embassy. he has dismissed pro coup protests taking place in his country. translation: sure, they make a lot of noise, but i can - assure you they don t represent national opinion in the country in question. with france, we had very good cooperation on the economic front and we also had very good cooperation on the military front an operation which has, moreover, borne fruit in the fight against terrorists in the sahel. earlier, i spoke with alexis akwagyiram, managing editor at the news website semafor africa.