Wagner mercenary boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who remains publicly visible despite leading a failed mutiny against the Russian army’s leadership last month, has hailed Niger’s military coup saying his his fighters’ services can bring order to the West African nation.
A voice message by Prigozhin on Telegram app channels associated with Wagner did not claim involvement in the coup, but described it as a moment of overdue liberation from Western colonisers .
“What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonisers. With colonisers who are trying to foist their rules of life on them and their conditions and keep them in the state that Africa was in hundreds of years ago,” said the message, posted on Friday, Julyb28.
“Today this is effectively gaining their independence. The rest will without doubt depend on the citizens of Niger and how effective governance will be, but the main thing is this: they have got rid of the colonisers,” the message said.
Prigozhin, in his voice message, boasted of Wagner’s alleged efficiency in helping African nations stabilise and develop in what sounded like a sales pitch.
“Thousands of Wagner fighters are capable of bringing order and of destroying terrorists and of not allowing them to harm the local populations of these states,” he said.
