Massaoudou said a second-lieutenant who had fled turned himself in to gendarmes.
Niger"s President Mahamadou Issoufou inspects the guard of honour upon arrival at the airport in Abuja, Nigeria May 28, 2015.
Niger's government has
arrested nine military officers for planning a coup, the interior
minister said on Saturday, doubling the number of arrests the president
announced earlier this week.
President Mahamadou Issoufou
said in a televised address on Thursday the alleged coup-plotters had
planned on using aerial firepower and prevented the movement of military
assets from the capital Niamey to the southern region of Diffa.
Issoufou
was elected in 2011, a year after a coup, and is running for a second
term in polls scheduled for Feb. 21. Political tension is already high,
with critics accusing him of repression and expressing doubts about the
latest claims.
"Nine identified officers
identified as responsible for the attempted coup have been arrested and
will be presented before a military court," Hassoumi Massaoudou, Niger's interior minister, told journalists.
Massaoudou said a second-lieutenant who had fled turned himself in to gendarmes.
The
government had previously said four senior officials had been arrested,
including the former military chief of staff, General Souleymane Salou, and Lieutenant-Colonel Dan Haoua, who headed Niamey's air force base.
Political opponents said they did not believe the government's claims.
"We don't see any evidence of the attempted coup," said opposition leader Amadou Boubacar Cisse.
"Rather, he (Issoufou) has created a lot of problems around the
election and has taken fraudulent actions with the electoral list."
In
December the government announced it would audit its voter register
before the presidential election after demands lodged by opposition
parties.
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