West African ECOWAS bloc mulls new strategy towards junta states
investing.comBy Felix Onuah
ABUJA (Reuters) — The West African regional bloc should consider a change of strategy as it seeks to persuade junta-led countries to restore democracy and remain in the alliance, its chairman said on Saturday.
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are meeting to address a political crisis in the coup-hit region which deepened in January with military-ruled Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali's decision 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,» said ECOWAS chairman and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu in opening remarks before a closed-door session in the capital Abuja.
«We must reexamine our current approach to the quest for constitutional order.»
He did not give further details, but the comments will add to expectations that ECOWAS is readying to ease or lift sanctions on Niger, which include its suspension from the regional financial market and central bank.
ECOWAS closed borders and imposed the strict measures on Niger last year after soldiers detained President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 and set up a transitional government, one of a series of recent military takeovers that have exposed the bloc's inability to halt democratic backsliding.
Easing sanctions would be seen as a gesture of appeasement as ECOWAS tries to persuade the three junta states to remain in the nearly 50-year-old alliance and rethink a withdrawal. Their planned exit would undermine regional integration efforts and bring a messy disentanglement from the bloc's trade and services flows, worth nearly $150 billion a year.
The sanctions have forced Niger, already one of the world's poorest countries, to
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