Ouagadougou: The former presidents of Benin, Nicéphore Soglo and Boni Yayi, arrived Tuesday in Niamey for mediation actions with the Nigerien authorities, returned this Thursday to Benin, dressed in white boubous, but without doing declaration.
During their 72-hour stay, the two Beninese mediators met the Head of State of Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani and his predecessors including Salou Djibo and Ousmane Mahamane, to try to bring together the two countries whose relations are increasingly more tense.
‘They left Niamey this Thursday, June 27, 2024 early in the morning,’ accompanied to the airport by the Minister of State, Minister in charge of the Interior, General Mohamed Toumba, specifies the Niger Press Agency.
‘They did not have any declaration upon their arrival,’ declares the Beninese information site, Le Matinal.
Yayi Boni and Nicéphore Solgo went to Niger after the exacerbation of tensions between the two neighboring countries, resulting from the arrest followed by imprisonment, on June 5, 20
24, of a team of Nigerien supervisors at the Sèmè port terminal -Kodji.
The members of this team, including the deputy general director of WAPCO-Niger, were tried and given suspended sentences for ‘usurpation of title and use of falsified computer data’.
Since then, the Niger authorities have decided to close the valves on the Niger-Benin pipeline and are considering turning to Chad to sell the country’s crude on the international market.
The border between the two countries is kept closed by the Niamey authorities who cite security issues and accuse Benin of maintaining terrorist bases.
After the fall of Bazoum, the Beninese authorities were in favor of militarily attacking Niger through ECOWAS forces in order to dislodge General Tiani and reinstate the deposed president to power.
Source: Burkina Information Agency