Niger, 2015 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 17 December 2015, corresponding to the alleged December 2015 coup plot against President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger. On 17 December 2015 Issoufou announced on national television that his government had foiled an attempted coup, which he described as high treason, saying the plotters had planned to use aerial firepower to seize power and had deliberately blocked the movement of military assets from Niamey that he wanted sent to the Diffa region to fight Boko Haram. Gendarmes had arrested at least four senior military officers earlier that week, including former armed forces chief of staff General Souleymane Salou and the head of the Niamey air force base, Lieutenant-Colonel Dan Haoua; the interior minister said a few days later that nine officers in total had been arrested after a nearly month-long surveillance operation.
All the main actors were said to have been arrested except one who had fled. The alleged plot came about two months before the 21 February 2016 presidential election, and opposition leaders questioned the claims and accused Issoufou of manufacturing drama ahead of the vote. The 17 December 2015 coding matches Issoufou's announcement.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
43612172015
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Issoufou announced the plot foiled and arrested officers before the 2016 election.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Wall Street Journal
The Citizen
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →