Held captive by his former security guards in a secluded wing of his home, Niger’s deposed president wanders around a bedroom with no direct sunlight, cut off from the world and unable to speak to his lawyers, according to people with direct knowledge of the conditions. of his arrest.
Nine months since he was overthrown in one of the coups that have recently devastated West Africa, Mohamed Bazoum remains detained with no end in sight. The military junta that deposed him seeks to strip him of presidential immunity, paving the way for him to be prosecuted on charges such as treason, the penalty for which could be life in prison, his lawyers said.
Trapped with his wife, Hadiza, and two maids, he has no access to a telephone and is not allowed to see his lawyers, other family members or friends, according to members of his inner circle who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the precariousness of their situation. the situation. His only visitor is a doctor, who brings him food once a week.
The once loud calls for his release have been silenced. Many of Bazoum’s closest allies (members of his cabinet and his advisers) have been imprisoned or forced to flee Niger.
And some of Bazoum’s closest international partners are pushing back. At the request of the ruling junta, the United States is preparing to withdraw about 1,000 soldiers stationed at an air base in the country’s desert. France, a long-time partner in the fight against extremist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, left the country in December.
Instead, about 100 Russian military instructors arrived in the capital, Niamey, in April, as Niger’s new leaders turned to Moscow for security assistance.
“Little by little, this man is being forgotten in all these geopolitical movements,” said Reed Brody, a prominent human rights lawyer who represents Bazoum.
The military leaders who seized power in Niger accused him of failing to protect the country from Islamist insurgents, but most analysts say political rivalries were the real cause and that Niger was doing better than its neighbors. when it comes to keeping armed insurgents at bay.
When soldiers seized power in several West and Central African countries over the past four years, they restricted individual freedoms, delayed a return to civilian rule, and persecuted their opponents, including presidents they once served and then overthrew. .
But Bazoum’s ordeal is striking. He has been removed from power, but remains at the center of it, as General Abdourahmane Tchiani, the senior military official who overthrew him and now rules Niger, is holding him just a few hundred meters from his office in the presidential complex.
“Tchiani’s power lies partly in the detention of Bazoum,” said Amadou Ange Chekaraou Barou, a close adviser to Bazoum. “Bazoum is like a shield to him.”
Niger’s military government did not respond to several requests for comment.
Bazoum, 64, has refused to step down, but international partners now speak of him as a former leader. A State Department spokesperson said in April: “We continue to call for the release of former President Bazoum and those unjustly detained as part of the July 2023 military coup.”
A hearing is scheduled for May 10 that could strip him of his presidential immunity, his lawyers say. This could lead to his prosecution on charges such as treason, over an allegation that he attempted to escape in October; supporting terrorism, for saying in an interview as president that Islamist militants had better knowledge of the battlefield than the military; and conspiring against state security, since he is accused of asking foreign powers to release him shortly after the coup.
Moussa Coulibaly, a lawyer representing Bazoum at the hearings in Niamey, declined to say whether the former president had tried to escape and accused the junta of trying to make an illegal detention appear legitimate.
During his first months of captivity, Mr. Bazoum was held with his wife; his 22-year-old son, Salem; and two domestic employees in the presidential residence. They had no electricity, but were able to wander inside the house while guards and others perched in armed vans surrounded it.
However, the house soon became a gigantic oven, said a member of Bazoum’s inner circle. Temperatures that reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit outside caused the captives’ skin to peel, the person said. Mrs. Bazoum also suffered a serious bout of malaria.
After the junta accused Mr. Bazoum of trying to escape in October, it further restricted his movement, trapping him, his family and his domestic workers in one wing of the residence. Soldiers are now stationed inside and have removed the keys from the doors inside the residence, so Mr. Bazoum cannot lock them for privacy. There is electricity, but the soldiers confiscated all the phones, according to those interviewed in his inner circle.
Bazoum spends his days exercising on a stationary bike and reading Marxist theory, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” His closest relatives and advisers expected him to be released by Christmas or Eid al-Fitr in April. His son was released this year.
But as the former president remains stranded in a room once used by one of his children, they say his next step could be going to jail.
“Prison has always been something he has taken into account in his political career,” said a member of Bazoum’s inner circle.
Bazoum, once a high school philosophy teacher, was elected president of Niger in 2021 and quickly turned the country into one of the most favored recipients of foreign aid in West Africa. He addressed corruption and promised to send more girls to school, in part to limit premature pregnancies in a country with the world’s highest birth rate. He worked closely with China to build an oil pipeline that is Africa’s longest, which the board inaugurated this year.
He sought help from the United States and European countries to fight extremist groups and bought drones from Turkey, but he also negotiated with militants in semi-secret.
He welcomed the US Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, and the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, to the capital. European emissaries such as the Prince of Denmark and the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, also visited.
“Bazoum was seen as the best of all partners, and Western leaders were attached to it,” said Jean-Hervé Jézéquel, project director of the International Crisis Group for the Sahel region, which includes Niger. But “so far, that popularity has not paid off” in securing Bazoum’s release, he said.
For months, the United States and European countries remained divided over the best approach to win their release from Niger’s junta and encourage a return to civilian rule, according to three senior Western officials working in Niger. France pushed for military intervention; The United States resisted the idea.
Now, Niger has expelled both countries and incorporated Russia.
Barou, Bazoum’s top adviser, said there was little hope he would break free from the current board. “In the history of Niger,” he said, “detained presidents were never released until the soldiers who deposed them were evicted.”