Staff Writer
Germany urged for EU sanctions on the rebel leaders as West African military commanders met in Ghana on Thursday to plan a potential armed intervention to overthrow a coup.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has decided to mobilize a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger after becoming alarmed by a string of military coups in the area.
Following his overthrow on July 26, President Mohamed Bazoum is being demanded to be released by the coup leaders in Niger, with ECOWAS threatening to send in soldiers as a last resort if talks break down.
General Christopher Gwabin Musa, the Chief of Defence Staff of Nigeria, said at the meeting in Accra, “Democracy is what we stand for and it’s what we encourage.”
The goal of our meeting, he stated, is to deliberately set a course that leads to peace and fosters stability rather than just react to circumstances.
Since 1990, ECOWAS forces have intervened in additional crises, like as the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Although troops from Ivory Coast, Benin, and Nigeria are anticipated, no information on a prospective Niger operation has surfaced.
The ECOWAS conference in Accra would “fine-tune” the specifics in the event that the group “were to resort to the ultimate means of force,” according to Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace, and security.
Musah is also believed to have stated that all member states, with the exception of Cape Verde and those under military rule, are prepared to join the standby force.
The Nigerien generals who seized Bazoum attributed the coup to the country’s deteriorating security and threatened to accuse him of treason. However, they have stated that they are willing to negotiate. The United States and Russia have pushed for a diplomatic resolution to the problem.
France, Germany, and the US have discontinued aid programs while ECOWAS has already imposed trade and financial restrictions.
Germany’s foreign ministry stated on social media on Thursday that it wanted the EU to impose sanctions on the coup leaders after Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock spoke with her French and US counterparts.
Sahelian violence
Leading military officers met in Accra on Thursday and Friday in response to recent bloodshed in Niger, where Islamists claimed at least 17 lives.
The military suffered its worst losses since the July 26 revolution, when the presidential guard overthrew Bazoum and imprisoned him and his family, by injuring twenty more troops, six of whom were critically wounded.
For more than ten years, jihadist insurgencies have plagued Africa’s Sahel area. They first appeared in northern Mali in 2012 before moving to nearby Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.
Thousands of soldiers, police officers, and civilians have died as a result of the turmoil in the area, and millions of people have been forced to leave their homes.
Since 2020, Mali and Burkina Faso have seen military coups driven by rage at the bloodshed, with Niger being the most recent.
Analysts claim that any ECOWAS action against the coup leaders in Niger would be politically and militarily dangerous, and the bloc has stated that a diplomatic resolution is preferred.
In a statement released on Tuesday, ECOWAS “strongly condemned” the most recent jihadist assault and urged the military to “restore constitutional order in Niger” so that it could concentrate on security, which has been weakened since the attempted coup d’état.
Under the auspices of the African Union, discussions between members of ECOWAS and Niger have been taking place this week in Addis Abeba.
The United States announced on Wednesday that a new ambassador would soon travel to Niger to assist in directing diplomatic efforts to put an end to the coup.
- A UN food alert
The election of Bazoum in 2021 marked a turning point in Niger’s history because it marked the nation’s first peaceful transfer of power since gaining independence from France in 1960.
Before being overthrown in the fifth military coup in the country, he had withstood two previous coup attempts.
The United Nations called for border closures and humanitarian exceptions to sanctions on Wednesday, stating that the crisis could considerably worsen the country’s already severe food insecurity.
In its southeast, Niger is also dealing with a jihadist insurgency that is being led by terrorists who have crossed over from Nigeria, the origin of a Boko Haram-led campaign that began in 2010.
