Ten people are said to have been killed when they seized power in gun battles – a move which has been widely condemned. State TV reported that ousted President Mamadou Tandja was “safe” but gave no details of his whereabouts. The junta leader, Col Salou Djibo, is said to have a formidable military power base.
Col Djibo has command over about 40% of the country’s military arsenal. Our correspondent says the colonel’s family has deep-rooted army connections. Another of the plotters, Col Djibrilla Hima Hamidou, was junta spokesman during the last military takeover in 1999. The president was assassinated during that coup, but civilian rule was restored within a year.
The uranium-rich country was plunged into a political crisis last August when Mr Tandja forced through changes to the constitution giving him hugely extended powers and allowing him to remain in power indefinitely.
West Africa trade bloc Ecowas, which had been mediating in talks between the government and opposition before the coup, has already been in touch with the junta and has dispatched a team to Niamey for talks.
Ecowas chief Mohammed Ibn Chambas told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme the soldiers could be given “the benefit of the doubt” if they moved quickly to restore civilian rule.
“With the events of the last few days, we need to make contact with the authorities to help them return the country quickly to constitutional government,” he said.
The African Union, European Union and former colonial power France have all condemned the coup. The day after the takeover, people in Niamey were going about their business as normal – attending mosques and going shopping.
There was no obvious military presence on the streets, but heavy artillery had been deployed around the presidential palace, our correspondent said. Mr Tandja, a former army officer, was first voted into office in 1999 and was returned to power in an election in 2004. The 71-year-old leader was grabbed by soldiers while he chaired his weekly cabinet meeting on Thursday afternoon.
The junta – calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy – later announced that the government had been dissolved. The plotters said their aim was to restore democracy and save the population from “poverty, deception and corruption”.
On Friday, they issued a communique saying government departments would now be run by senior civil servants. It is thought that the soldiers are holding the cabinet ministers, although no mention has been made of their fates. They then announced that the curfew would be lifted “so that people may go about their business”, and the borders reopened “to promote traffic and trade”.
Niger has experienced long periods of military rule since independence from France in 1960. It is one of the world’s poorest countries, but Mr Tandja’s supporters argue that his decade in power has brought a measure of economic stability.
Under his tenure, the French energy firm Areva has begun work on the world’s second-biggest uranium mine – ploughing an estimated $1.5bn (£970m) into the project. China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $5bn deal in 2008 to pump oil within three years.
