Niger Coup: Five Countries Shun ECOWAS Defence Chiefs Meeting

Defence Chiefs from Mali, Niger, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, and Guinea have shunned the ongoing meeting in Abuja.

Those in attendance at the meeting, which was said to have commenced at 12:30 pm, are defence chiefs from ten countries that make up the 15-member Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS).

They are Defence Chiefs from Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, The Gambia, Cote D’Ivoire, and Cape Verde.

The meeting is taking place at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja.

The meeting is being presided over by the Nigeria Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa.

This comes after ECOWAS issued a seven-day ultimatum to the military junta in Niger Republic to hand over power to the democratically elected government of Mohamed Bazoum.

President of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Touray, had during the extraordinary session presided over by its Chairman, President Bola Tinubu in Abuja last Sunday, disclosed that all Chiefs of Defence Staff of the member states would proceed for an emergency meeting to strategise on effective ways to implement a possible military operation to restore Bazoum to office.

Recall that members of the elite  Presidential Guard had detained President Bazoum of Niger inside his palace in the capital, Niamey, early on Wednesday, July 26th.

The military, through its Spokesman, Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane, on Wednesday night, announced on state television that it had overthrown the government of President Mohamed Bazoum.