Niger: In response to growing concerns about his health, the detained president of Niger saw a doctor on Saturday, according to his entourage. Meanwhile, Nigerian religious leaders met with the coup's perpetrators in an effort to diffuse the situation.

According to a source close to the delegation, the Muslim leaders travelled to the nation's capital, Niamey, with the approval of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, head of the ECOWAS regional organisation for West Africa.

A Saturday crisis meeting on the coup that toppled Mohamed Bazoum was cancelled, but ECOWAS has approved the deployment of a "standby force to restore constitutional order" in Niger as soon as possible.

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Bazoum, 63, was overthrown by his presidential guard on July 26. Since then, the guard has been keeping him and his family at his official Niamey residence.
Following reports of deteriorating detention conditions, the European Union, the African Union, and the United Nations joined others in raising the alarm for Bazoum on Friday.

According to a member of his entourage who spoke to AFP, Bazoum "had a visit by his doctor today," who also brought food for Bazoum, his wife, and son.

Given the circumstances, the source continued, "He's fine."

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Bazoum was reportedly spoken to by Human Rights Watch earlier this week. The former leader had called the treatment of his wife, himself, and their ill 20-year-old son "inhuman and cruel," HRW reported.
The group quoted him as saying, "My son is sick, has a serious heart condition, and needs to see a doctor." "They won't let him receive medical care."
Volker Turk, the head of the UN human rights office, stated on Friday that Bazoum's alleged detention circumstances "could amount to inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights law."
As a "demonstration of goodwill," the military's refusal to release Bazoum's family outraged top US diplomat Antony Blinken.

According to Niger's national television, the delegation of religious leaders from Nigeria was welcomed in Niamey by the recently appointed Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine and then by the powerful General Abdourahamane Tiani.
According to the ANP press agency in Niger, the group was led by Sheikh Bala Lau, the founder of the Izala Salafist movement in Nigeria.

According to a source close to the delegation, Tinubu had instructed them to go "to douse tension created by the prospect of military intervention by ECOWAS."

"The clerics are in Niamey to explain to the junta leaders that Nigeria is not fighting Niger and that the decisions taken on Niger are not Nigeria's but those of ECOWAS as a regional bloc," the source continued.

The mission was discussed when Lau led a group of clerics earlier this week when they met with Tinubu in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, the source said.
The crisis meeting that had been scheduled for Saturday in Ghana's capital Accra was postponed by West African leaders on Friday. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) chiefs of staff cited "technical reasons."

According to sources, the meeting's original purpose was to present "the best options" to the organization's leaders for activating and deploying the standby force.

Hassoumi Massaoudou, the former foreign minister of the ousted civilian government, stated on Saturday that "the military option seriously envisaged by ECOWAS is not a war against Niger and its people but a police operation against hostage takers and their accomplices."

ECOWAS is adamant about preventing the sixth military coup in the area in just three years.

It has cut off electricity and financial transactions, and it has closed its borders with landlocked Niger, preventing one of the world's poorest nations from getting much-needed imports.

ECOWAS had previously given the coup leaders a seven-day deadline to restore Bazoum, but the generals disobeyed it. The deadline eventually ran out on Sunday.

On Friday, thousands of coup supporters demonstrated in Niamey to oppose the ECOWAS plan to send troops. On the outskirts of Niamey, protesters gathered and chanted "Down with France, down with ECOWAS."

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Former colonial power France, a close ally of Bazoum, is allegedly behind the rigid ECOWAS stance, according to Niger's new leaders.
In Niger, France has about 1,500 soldiers fighting an eight-year jihadist insurgency.

As a result of disagreements with military governments that overthrew elected leaders in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, it withdrew its anti-jihadist forces from those countries last year. As a result, it is now facing growing hostility across the Sahel.