A founder of the West African bloc ECOWAS on Wednesday called for the lifting of sanctions on coup-hit countries ahead of an emergency heads of state meeting in the troubled region.
A founder of the West African bloc ECOWAS on Wednesday called for the lifting of sanctions on coup-hit countries ahead of an emergency heads of state meeting in the troubled region.
The Economic Community of West African States plunged into crisis after Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger declared their withdrawal from the bloc last month.
The region has also been rocked by President Macky Sall’s sudden decision to delay elections in Senegal.
Former military dictator General Yakubu Gowon, who led Nigeria against separatist Biafra during the 1967-70 civil war, warned ECOWAS was “threatened with disunity”.
He urged West African leaders to consider the “lifting of all sanctions that have been imposed on Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger”.
At a meeting hosted by ECOWAS in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, he called on Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to rethink their decision.
“Please, please rejoin, come back,” he said.
The three countries were founding members of ECOWAS in 1975, but the bloc suspended them following military coups that overthrew elected civilian governments.
It imposed heavy sanctions on Mali and Niger, which are still in force against Niamey.
On Monday the military in Guinea, which took power in a September 2021 coup, decreed the dissolution of the government.
Gowon led Nigeria as civil war raged in the southeast after Igbo separatists declared an independent Republic of Biafra. More than one million people died — most of them Igbos — from war, famine and disease.
The 89-year-old has since played the elder statesman in Africa and local media reported that he met Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu before delivering his speech.
ECOWAS commission president Omar Alieu Touray said Gowon had delivered a “powerful message”.
Touray confirmed the bloc’s extraordinary summit would take place on Saturday and said the “leaders will bear in mind your message during their deliberations”.
The turmoil in the region has brought the almost 50-year-old bloc’s broader role into doubt, especially after its warning of a potential military intervention in Niger last year fizzled out with no sign the country’s toppled president is closer to being restored.
Leave a Reply