UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Niger\u2019s President Mohammed Buzoum, who is being held captive by military officers who have declared a coup.<\/p>\n
After members of the president\u2019s own guard detained him inside his offices in the capital Niamey, a group of officers from all branches of the military made the television announcement late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
According to news reports, the attempted coup does not have the support of the entire military, but the army chief has stated his support for the move.<\/p>\n
In an address to reporters at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Guterres strongly condemned the attempted military takeover and the assault on the democratically elected government.<\/p>\n
The UN backs the West African bloc ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) in their efforts to restore democracy.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, President Bazoum issued his own defiant tweet, saying that \u201cthe hard-won achievements would be safeguarded.\u201d All Nigerians who value democracy and freedom will take care of it.<\/p>\n
Guterres said he spoke with the president on Wednesday to express the UN\u2019s complete support.<\/p>\n
In a direct address to the coup plotters in Niger, the UN Secretary-General demanded that they stop obstructing democratic governance and respect the rule of law.<\/p>\n
Following coups in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso in recent years, which were prompted by the rise of jihadist terrorist groups throughout the Sahel region, the secretary-general stated that the events in Niamey were part of a \u201cdisturbing trend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Successive unconstitutional changes of government are having terrible effects on the development and lives of civilian populations.<\/p>\n
This is particularly glaring in countries already affected by conflict, violent extremism and terrorism, as well as the devastating effects of climate change.<\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s human rights chief Volker T\u00fcrk tweeted that he was \u201cshocked and distressed\u201d by the coup attempt, adding that every step must be taken to restore constitutional order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Niger\u2019s President Mohammed Buzoum, who is being held captive by military officers who have declared a coup. After members of the president\u2019s own guard detained him inside his offices in the capital Niamey, a group of officers from all branches of the military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2944,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions\/2944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}