The West African regional bloc, ECOWAS is scrambling to tackle the decision by three of its members to withdraw even as the situation in one its most stable member states, Senegal is giving it cause for worry.
The bloc’s foreign ministers converged on Abuja, the Nigerian capital over the issues.
The military governments in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso had on January 28, 2024 announced that they have severed ties with the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS due to what they jointly called “unfair treatment and non-adherance to the bloc’s founding charter.” A reference to sanctions imposed over the removal of constitutional order in the 3 member countries.
Since then, ECOWAS had said that non of the countries had officially communicated it about the development, prompting the respective junta to follow up the next day with formal correspondences of withdrawal.
Over a week on, Senegalese President Macky Sall’s announcement of a postponement of the country’s scheduled February. 28, 2024 presidential elections is building up additional pressure on democratic stability of the West African sub-region.
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The meeting of the ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council holding in Abuja is reviewing these developments, with the Commission’s President, Omar Aliu Touray opening the discourse in a welcome address.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, noted that, democracy must be allowed to thrive within the sub-region
Both the United Nation and the African Union expressed readiness to collaborate with ECOWAS to decisively address the political situation in the sub-region.
The meeting had entered a closed session which is expected to come up with a communique that would usually be submitted to the Authority of Heads of State and Governments.
(Editor: Ken Eseni)
