West African leaders meet over Niger coup, junta warns against intervention

<p>The European Union and France have cut off financial support to Niger and the United States has threatened to do the same.</p>, <span>Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani. Bloomberg</span>, <h2>Niger’s military leaders have warned against any armed intervention in the country as West African leaders are set to gather in Nigeria’s capital on Sunday for an emergency summit to decide on further actions to pressure the army to restore constitutional order.</h2>, <p>Heads of state of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union could suspend Niger from its institutions, cut off the country from the regional central bank, and financial market, as well as close borders.</p>, <p>Niger’s eastern neighbour Chad, a non-member of both regional organisations, has been invited to the ECOWAS summit, a statement from the Chadian president’s office said on Saturday.</p>, <p>Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving close to $2 billion a year in official development assistance, according to the World Bank.</p>, <p>It is also a security partner of former colonial power France and the United States, which both use it as a base to fight an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s wider Sahel region.</p>, <p>The West African leaders could also for the first time, consider a military intervention to restore President Mohamed Bazoum who was ousted when Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani was declared the new head of state on Friday.</p>, <p>Ahead of the Sunday summit, the military leaders in Niger on Saturday night, warned in a statement read on Niger national television on Saturday night against any military intervention.</p>, <p>“The objective of the (ECOWAS) meeting is to approve a plan of aggression against Niger through an imminent military intervention in Niamey in collaboration with other African countries that are non-members of ECOWAS, and certain western countries,” junta spokesman Col. Amadou Abdramane said.</p>, <p>“We want to once mor