The African Organisation has suspended Niger’s membership a month after a coup d’état by general Abdourahmane Tchiani. The group’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) again condemned the coup and complimented the policies implemented by Ecowas since the removal of Mohammed Bazoum.
Niger is suspended from the AU until the country’s constitutional order is effectively restored. Ecowas had previously decided to deploy a “standby force” if the Nigerian military government did not hand back power to the Bazoum government, and had called on the AU Commission to assess the implications of this force.
Ecowas also asked senior AU officials to mediate the effort, but the AU, in line with the 1977 OAU Treaty on the Elimination of Mercenarism, was “strongly opposed to interference from outside the continent, including the involvement of private military companies on the continent.