Did deposed president Mohamed Bazoum, who has been missing for two days, really try to escape?

In Niger, we have not heard from elected President Mohammed Bazoum for almost 48 hours. Since the coup d’état of July 26, 2023, he has been under house arrest and refused to resign. Many countries continue to call for his release, but an event today overshadows his fate: the junta claims that he tried to escape.

An escape plan discovered by the junta?

This news is as surprising as it is impossible to verify, given that the pressure exerted today on the city of Niamey and the rest of the country is such that no voice would dare contradict the words of the junta. The details of this escape attempt therefore come from only one story, that of the spokesperson for the National Council for the Protection of the Fatherland. A story of almost surgical precision, where an escape plan by car then by helicopter to Nigeria is divided into numbered phases.

However, the presidential residence is located in the heart of the overprotected military camp of Niamey. So the junta claims that not only would it have brilliantly foiled the daring escape of a whole group of people and of Mohamed Bazoum, this 63-year-old man whose state of health was already considered worrying in the middle of August, but the military would have obtained all the details of the plan, down to the final destination of the two helicopters, provided by a “foreign power”.

“Fabricated accusations”

The junta is careful not to name this foreign power and this raises questions. The United States, France, Italy and Germany are the four countries with air assets in Niger. France is in the process of leaving the territory and the junta has never held back from incriminating it at the slightest opportunity since the start of the crisis. No reason therefore not to name her if she was involved. The United States has done everything diplomatically to maintain a base in Niger, so they have no interest in taking this kind of risk. Even higher risk for the Italians and Germans who have very few men on site.

If it’s none of these four “foreign powers” who hatched this plan, perhaps there was never an escape attempt. This is the conviction of Mohamed Bazoum’s collective of lawyers. According to them, “These accusations were fabricated” to allow the junta to “hold incommunicado” the Nigerien president. This morning, access to the presidential residence was refused to the doctor in charge who brings him medicine and food.

Mohamed Bazoum has simply disappeared since Wednesday evening. His lawyers, until now focused on legal actions, are now demanding a “proof of life”.