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Nigerien opposition leader and former prime minister Hama Amadou was jailed on Monday after being questioned for three days for his alleged role in the post-election violence, prosecutors told AFP.
Amadou faces “multiple charges” including “complicity” in protests and property damage, prosecutors say after widespread protests over presidential election results that gave candidate victory of the ruling party Mohamed Bazoum over Mahamane Ousmane of the opposition.
Other charges included “regionalist propaganda” and “discourse inclined to pit people against each other”.
More of the hundreds arrested since the Feb.21 election have been jailed, prosecutors said without naming them.
According to official preliminary results, Bazoum – the designated successor of outgoing Mahamadou Issoufou – got 55.7% of the vote, but Ousmane claims he scored a victory with 50.3%.
Amadou had once been considered the main opposition candidate to run against Bazoum.
However, he was banned from running due to a conviction for trafficking babies – a charge he said was politically motivated – and gave support to Ousmane.
“ Stubbornness of the regime ”
Earlier on Monday, the opposition Cap 20/21 coalition had said it was determined to “use all legal means to defend the victory”, according to it, Ousmane won over Bazoum, saying there was no “no doubt” that he was the rightful president.
In a statement read at Ousmane’s party headquarters, the opposition called on “all Nigeriens to stand up and rally around President Mahamane Ousmane to prevent victory from being snatched”.
“More than 500 people” have been “arbitrarily arrested in Niamey and in the interior of the country” since the riots which broke out after the proclamation of the victory of Bazoum, he added.
Interior Minister Alkache Alhada said Amadou was the person “primarily responsible” for the post-election riots in which two people were killed and 468 arrested, while shops were looted and infrastructure destroyed.
Amadou surrendered to the police on Friday and the opposition says a dozen other leaders have been arrested.
During the campaign, Amadou attacked Bazoum for being a member of the Arab ethnic minority in Niger, in sometimes very heated remarks which, according to several sources close to the authorities, could make him liable to criminal prosecution.
Nevertheless, the opposition declared on Monday that “the crisis which is currently shaking Niger severely has neither ethnic nor racial origin, but results from the obstinacy of a regime which overwhelmingly and clearly refuses the choice expressed on February 21”.
He also alleged “massive electoral fraud” in a poll that was touted as the establishment of the country’s first peaceful transfer of power since independence.
Niger is the poorest nation in the world according to the UN benchmark for human development and is fighting two jihadist insurgencies that have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
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