Iran Press/ Africa: The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has said most of its member states are ready to participate in a standby force that could intervene in Niger following a coup on its president Mohammed Bazoum last month.
Defense chiefs from the 15-member regional bloc met in Accra as part of the latest efforts to overturn the removal of Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s president who was deposed in a coup.
All member states except those under military rule are ready to participate in the standby force, ECOWAS commissioner AbdulFatau Musah said on Thursday.“Democracy is what we stand for and it’s what we encourage, Niger has flouted thier own constitution, that forbids military incursions in politics.
They have flouted ECOWAS instruments, particularly the various sector of the supplementary protocols on democracy and good governance that declare zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means”.
“Sections of the same protocol also talk about the democratic control of the arms control of armed forces and they are subjection to the authority of civilian authorities, their principal role is the defence of the territorial integrity of member states and to ensure security and is ironic that many of these junk tests that have overthrown democratically elected government site insecurity are the reason for which they staged the coup, so if it's the insecurity, who should bear the lion share of the blame, is the civilian Authority or those who are supposed to fight the terrorists and another armed group that are marauding in our sub-region, that is the irony of it”.
Abdulfatah Musah said at the two-day meeting in Accra “President Bola Tinubu deployed a very high delegation and ECOWAS reasons for gathering is not simply to react to events, but to proactively chart a course that results in peace and promotes stability.”The meeting to discuss Niger’s crisis comes after the August 6 deadline passed for mutinous soldiers to release and reinstate Bazoum or face military intervention. Bazoum remains under house arrest with his wife and son in the capital, Niamey.
The bloc has long deliberated on the use of force which it described as a “last resort” for weeks due to several mediation teams it sent to Niamey and also due to a lack of consensus within its ranks.
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