The commander of Niger’s presidential guard claimed the leadership of the West African country with a televised address on Friday, two days after his military unit detained the democratically elected president and threw the future of a key Western ally in the region into uncertainty.

“We have decided to intervene and seize our responsibilities,” Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who goes by the first name Omar, said on state television. “We can’t continue with the same approaches.”