By Vincent Agu
The military regimes in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have announced their immediate withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States.
The leaders of the three Sahel nations raising from the meeting yesterday issued a communique saying it was a “sovereign decision” to leave the ECOWAS “without delay”.
The three Countries stated that after 49 years of existence, the valiant people of Burkina, Mali and Niger note with much regret, bitterness and great disappointment that their Organization has moved away from the ideals of its founding fathers and Pan-Africanism, adding ECOWAS, under the influence of foreign powers, betraying its founding principles, has become a threat to its member states and its populations whose happiness it is supposed to ensure.
Struggling with jihadist violence and poverty, the regimes have had tense ties with ECOWAS since coups took place in Niger last July, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Mali in 2020.
The leaders noted that the organization has not provided assistance to our States in the context of our existential fight against terrorism and insecurity; worse, when these States decided to take their destiny into their own hands, it adopted an irrational and unacceptable posture by imposing illegal, illegitimate, inhumane and irresponsible sanctions in violation of its own texts; all things which have further weakened populations already bruised by years of violence imposed by instrumentalized and remote-controlled terrorist hordes.
The military leaders of the three Sahel Nation
All three were suspended from ECOWAS, with Niger and Mali facing heavy sanctions.
They have hardened their positions in recent months and joined forces in an “Alliance of Sahel States”.
A French military withdrawal from the Sahel — the region along the Sahara desert across Africa — has heightened concerns over the conflicts spreading southward to the Gulf of Guinea states Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Ivory Coast.
The prime minister appointed by Niger’s military regime on Thursday blasted ECOWAS for “bad faith” after the bloc largely shunned a planned meeting in Niamey.
Niger had hoped for an opportunity to talk through differences with fellow states of ECOWAS, which has cold-shouldered Niamey, imposing heavy economic and financial sanctions following the military coup that overthrew elected president Mohamed Bazoum