Niger coup plotters name ex-minister Zeine as new Prime Minister

<p>Nearly two weeks after the military took over power in Niger, the coup plotters have named former economy minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as the country’s new prime minister.</p>, <p>A spokesman for the military junta made the announcement on television late on Monday night.</p>, <p>Lamine Zeine was formerly the minister of economy and finance for several years in the cabinet of then-president Mamadou Tandja, who was ousted in 2010, and most recently worked as an economist for the African Development Bank in Chad, according to a Nigerien media report.</p>, <p>At the end of July, the military ousted the democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum and suspended the constitution in the country of 26 million inhabitants.</p>, <p>Under Bazoum, Niger had been one of the last strategic partners of the West in the fight against the advance of Islamist terrorists in the Sahel.</p>, <p>An ultimatum from the Economic Community of West African States to the coup plotters to reinstate Bazoum expired over the weekend.</p>, <p>Otherwise, ECOWAS would take measures that could include force, the ultimatum said.</p>, <p>The prime ministers of the ECOWAS member states will now meet in Nigeria’s capital Abuja on Thursday to discuss how to proceed.</p>, <p>(dpa/NAN)</p>