The July 2023 Niger coup was the sixth one in a former French colony along the Sahel in West Africa. However, the Niger coup got more attention than preceding military coups due to some driving interests by some actors who have called for a return to constitutional order.
On 26 July 2023, the Nigerien presidential guard announced that they had put the nation’s president under house arrest and had suspended the national constitution. This was an announcement of a sixth coup in the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) region since the August 2020 coup in Mali. The announcement of the coup generated various responses from Western powers dominated by France, the former colonial master, the United States of America (US), the European Union (EU) and also the regional body, ECOWAS, who all called for a return to the constitutional order. ECOWAS went as far as declaring that failure to return to the constitutional order, which in other words meant the reinstatement of the deposed president, Muhamed Bazoum, there would be a military intervention. These efforts have been resisted by the Nigerien military rulers who went on to appoint a new government on 10 August 2023. However, pushes have continued for the ‘return to the constitutional order’...
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