West Africa leaders recognise Niger’s junta, but sanctions to stay
- West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS sets conditions on lifting sanctions on Niger’s junta following a coup in July
- Region in crisis after coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger since 2020, two recent attempted coups elsewhere
West African heads of state on Sunday officially recognised the junta in power in Niger, but said their sanctions to reverse the July coup in the country would remain even as they initiate steps for a “short” period of transition to civilian rule.
A team of heads of state would engage with the junta “to agree on a short transition programme” as against the three years the soldiers earlier proposed, Omar Alieu Touray, president of the regional bloc of ECOWAS Commission, said at the bloc’s meeting in the Nigerian capital of Abuja.
The recognition of the junta by the 15-member bloc ends hopes of any immediate reinstatement of Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum, who was deposed amid a surge of coups across West and Central Africa where there have been eight military takeovers since 2020.
In the past month, the governments of Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau have also described political crises as attempted coups.
“The heads of state have recognised that what has happened in Niger is a coup and the CNSP (National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland) is a military administration in Niger,” Touray told reporters after the meeting.
