A court in Niger has denied bail to a jailed leading opposition contender in the upcoming landmark presidential elections scheduled to be held across the West African country next month.

An appeals court in the capital, Niamey, on Monday upheld the decision of another court in late December against Hama Amadou, who has been imprisoned for his alleged role in a baby-trafficking scandal.

Ibrahim Bana, a member of Amadou’s party, confirmed that Judge Ibrahim Harouna had refused to grant the presidential hopeful conditional release.

“The judge said the appeal could be admitted in theory but he turned down the request” for bail, Bana stated.

The jailed opposition figure had filed for provisional release to run for the first round of the February 21 elections. The electoral campaign will begin on January 30.

Reacting to the court ruling, Boubacar Mossi, Amadou’s lawyer said the charges against his client were politically motivated, because he was a rival to Niger’s incumbent President Mahamadou Issoufou.

Niger’s constitutional court recently approved 15 candidates for the polls, including Amadou.

Several other defendants who also face accusations of participating in the trafficking of babies from neighboring Nigeria have been released pending trial.

The defendants, including senior political, military and business figures, are accused of taking illegal custody of nearly 30 babies, born to women in private Nigerian clinics that offer infants for sale.

Amadou, the former premier and parliament speaker, has denounced the legal process against him as a ploy to sideline him from the elections.

Amadou was detained on November 14, when he flew back to the capital, Niamey, over a year after he fled the country when sought by investigators probing the child trafficking network.

Ahead of his return, Amadou had rejected the charges, calling on government officials to provide evidence in the case against him. “If a dossier has been put together against me by my opponents, then it is time for me to present myself to the judges so that they say what the truth is.”