Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: AFP 19:01 p.m., August 12, 2023

Nigerian religious leaders arrived in Niamey on Saturday to meet members of the military regime, who came to power in a coup that overthrew elected President Mohamed Bazoum, AFP learned from a source close to the regime.

The delegation was received at Diori Hamani airport by the newly appointed civilian Prime Minister, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine. According to the Nigerien News Agency (ANP), it is a delegation of religious leaders of the Muslim faith.

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'Standby force'

This source adds that the delegation "met earlier this week in Abuja with the current chairman" of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and also president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, to try to mediate between the regional organization and Niger.

This mediation comes when ECOWAS continues to favour a resolution of the crisis through diplomatic channels, after having however agreed to the deployment of a "standby force" to restore Bazoum to his functions.

Previous attempts at mediation have come to nothing. The military regime on Tuesday refused to host a joint delegation from ECOWAS, the African Union (AU) and the UN. In Nigeria, the voices of parliamentarians and politicians are rising all the way to the Senate, asking President Bola Tinubu to reconsider a possible military intervention by ECOWAS in Niger against the putschists.