By Chinasaokwu Helen Okoro
In custody since 2023, the deposed Niger president’s family is working with an American democracy activist to capture Washington’s attention.
Worldwide supporters of Niger’s deposed president are bringing their campaign to free Mohamed Bazoum to Washington.
More than 1,000 people from some 70 countries have signed a petition demanding his release from house arrest since its launch on Monday, 20 January. A half-dozen current and former heads of state and government from Africa and beyond have written their own letters. And a lobbyist from the United States is working to bring Bazoum’s family to Washington soon for meetings with the Donald Trump White House, the State Department, Congress and think-tanks.
[Bazoum and his wife] are essentially serving as human shields for their captors
The US was one of the earliest and strongest advocates for Bazoum’s freedom after he was toppled in July 2023, with President Joe Biden calling for the president and his wife to be “immediately released, and for the preservation of Niger’s hard-earned democracy”. Three months later, in October 2023, the Biden administration finally designated General Abdourahamane Tiani’s seizure of power a “coup”, suspending most aid and removing Niger’s eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) duty-free benefits.
But 550 days in, the sense of urgency has long dissipated.
“Calls for his release have become exceedingly scarce, ritualistic at best,” says Jeffrey Smith, founder of Washington advocacy firm Vanguard Africa. “So that’s really the genesis of the Free Bazoum campaign, where we’re marshalling international support, calling for his unequivocal, immediate release.”
Lobbying campaign
Smith was hired by Bazoum’s advocates earlier this month to provide “direct outreach to current and former US officials as well as related advocacy, relationships building and media outreach to support the Freedom for Bazoum campaign”, according to a lobbying filing with the US Department of Justice.
Vanguard Africa is to be paid $15,000 per month for three months of work on the advocacy campaign. Smith is working for the Rose Lokissim Association, a Swiss non-profit named after the celebrated Chadian opposition leader killed by Hissène Habré’s regime in the 1980s. American human rights lawyer Reed Brody, known as the ‘dictator hunter’, sits on the association’s board and is an old friend of Smith’s.
Bazoum and his wife are confined to a small wing of the presidential palace and are “essentially serving as human shields for their captors”, says Smith. Tiani’s junta rules from the same palace.
“President Bazoum’s ongoing detention is not only a grave violation of his human rights but also a blow to democratic principles and stability in West Africa. We believe his unjust captivity sets a dangerous precedent, undermining both the rule of law and international commitments to uphold democratic values,” the petition says.
“We call on world leaders and committed democrats to take immediate, decisive action to secure the release of President Bazoum and to restore Niger’s path to civilian rule.”
Smith tells The Africa Report he’s “hopeful” that “this sort of messaging will resonate with at least a certain segment of the officials currently constituting the Trump administration”.
Duelling priorities
The campaign comes as the Trump team is being pulled in different directions on how to deal with the Sahel’s putschist regimes.
Tibor Nagy, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs during Trump’s first term, has previously recommended that Washington engage with coup leaders instead of shunning them and inadvertently pushing them into Russia’s arms. Niger, where the US opened its now-abandoned air base in Agadez in 2019, is the prime example of that policy backfiring, Nagy told The Africa Report prior to his 20 January nomination as acting under secretary for management.
“We called it a coup and we preached [to] them through the megaphone. Result: The US being kicked out, which was a disaster,” Nagy said. “So I think we have to be more realistic.”
Nagy’s boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, by contrast has long been a vocal supporter of pro-western democracies, notably in Latin America, Smith points out.
“This proposition that Washington needs to prioritise short-term security and economic interests above democratic values and principles is flawed,” Smith says. “In the case of Niger, it is impossible to see how those interests are being advanced. Even in the short term, security, economic migration and certainly human rights interests have all deteriorated under military rule.”
Smith says the Sahel is a perfect case of US interests and values aligning.
“Prospects for stability and economic progress in the region and clearly, in Niger, are far better with democratic governments that are committed to their citizens to advancing transparency in the rule of law,” he says. “The data and the mounting evidence just simply do not lie in this regard.”
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