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© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) flag is pictured in Accra, Ghana March 25, 2022. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko/File Photo
By Felix Onuah
ABUJA (Reuters) – The West African regional bloc ought to contemplate a change of technique because it seeks to steer junta-led nations to revive democracy and stay within the alliance, its chairman mentioned on Saturday.
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are assembly to deal with a political disaster within the coup-hit area which deepened in January with military-ruled Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali’s determination to exit the 15-member union.
“I urge them to reconsider the decision of these three nations to exit … and not to perceive our organisation as the enemy,” mentioned ECOWAS chairman and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu in opening remarks earlier than a closed-door session within the capital Abuja.
“We must reexamine our current approach to the quest for constitutional order.”
He didn’t give additional particulars, however the feedback will add to expectations that ECOWAS is readying to ease or raise sanctions on Niger, which embrace its suspension from the regional monetary market and central financial institution.
ECOWAS closed borders and imposed the strict measures on Niger final 12 months after troopers detained President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 and arrange a transitional authorities, certainly one of a sequence of current army takeovers which have uncovered the bloc’s incapability to halt democratic backsliding.
Easing sanctions can be seen as a gesture of appeasement as ECOWAS tries to steer the three junta states to stay within the almost 50-year-old alliance and rethink a withdrawal. Their deliberate exit would undermine regional integration efforts and convey a messy disentanglement from the bloc’s commerce and companies flows, value almost $150 billion a 12 months.
The sanctions have compelled Niger, already one of many world’s poorest nations, to slash authorities spending and default on debt funds of over $500 million.
Niger’s coup adopted two every in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso over the previous three years, leaving a swath of territory within the palms of army governments which have additionally moved to distance themselves from former colonial ruler France and different Western allies.
ECOWAS additionally imposed sanctions on Mali in a bid to hasten its return to constitutional order though they have been lifted in 2022.
The three nations have referred to as ECOWAS’s sanctions technique unlawful and grounds for his or her determination to depart the bloc instantly with out abiding by normal withdrawal phrases.
The three have began cooperating underneath a pact referred to as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES (NYSE:)) and sought to kind a confederation, though it isn’t clear how carefully they plan to align political, financial and safety pursuits as they battle to comprise a decade-old battle with Islamist insurgents.