Niger's junta-appointed premier travels to Chad

Some three weeks after the shock coup in Niger, prime minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, who was appointed by the military junta, has travelled to neighbouring Chad.
The trip marks his first foreign visit.
The former financial minister visited the capital N'Djamena on Tuesday to meet President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno who currently heads the transitional military government.
Zeine delivered a personal message from the new commander of the elite unit, Abdourahamane Tchiani, to what he called the "brother country Chad," explaining the current circumstances of the coup, said the new Nigerien presidency.
Chad, an oil-rich but impoverished nation of 17 million in the Sahel region, has been ruled by a transitional military government since April 2021.
Déby Itno took over after his father, long-time ruler Idriss Déby, was killed by rebels looking to overthrow his government.
On July 26, officers of the presidential guard in Niger had unexpectedly toppled the government. Tchiani subsequently appointed himself the new ruler and dissolved the constitution.
Niger's new military rulers have announced that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum will be charged with high treason. High treason can be punished by death in Niger.
However, according to Amnesty International, executions have not occurred for decades.
The party of ousted Bazoum has rejected the charges of treason brought against him by the coup leaders.
The accusations against Bazoum are a childish and grotesque fabrication of lies that have no basis in facts, the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) party said on Tuesday.
It called on its supporters and "all democrats" to demonstrate.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened violence if the president were not to be reinstated, calling the announcement a "new form of provocation."
On Sunday, the junta in Niger had still shown itself open to negotiations with ECOWAS.
In the so-called "coup belt" of the Sahel region, Niger had been the exception to the rule, with its democratic government representing one of the last strategic partners of the West in the fight against Islamic terrorists in the region.