By Enyichukwu Enenanna
An adviser to the ousted Niger President, Mohamed Bazoum on Wednesday said the country’s leader is in dire condition, two weeks after he was forcefully removed from office in a military coup and put under house arrest.
The alarm comes as the U.S. State Department expressed deep concern about the “deteriorating conditions” of his detention.
President Bazoum, the West African nation’s democratically elected leader, has been held at the presidential palace in Niamey with his wife and son since July 26 when soldiers of the presidential guard removed him from office.
The family is living without electricity and only has rice and canned goods left to eat, the adviser said.
Bazoum remains in good health for now and will never resign, according to the adviser, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the sensitive situation with the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Bazoum’s political party issued a statement confirming the president’s living conditions and said the family also was without running water.
US. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Bazoum on Tuesday about recent diplomatic efforts, a statement said, and Blinken “emphasized that the safety and security of President Bazoum and his family are paramount.”
The State Department statement on Wednesday called for their immediate release.
On Monday, the junta named a new prime minister, civilian economist Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine. Zeine is a former economy and finance minister who left office after a previous coup in 2010 toppled the government at the time. He later worked at the African Development Bank.
The junta also refused to admit medication teams from the United Nations, the African Union, and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, citing “evident reasons of security in this atmosphere of menace,” according to a letter seen by The Associated Press.
ECOWAS had threatened to use military force if the junta didn’t reinstate Bazoum by Sunday, a deadline that the junta ignored and which passed without action from ECOWAS.
The bloc is expected to meet again Thursday to discuss the situation.
