Senator Ali Ndume has vehemently opposed to military intervention in Niger on the floor of the ECOWAS Parliament during their sitting to deliberate on the recent military takeover of the West African country.
Senator Ndume, a member of the ECOWAS parliament, said that Nigeria and its National Assembly have unanimously agreed that the country would not send its troops to Niger to engage in war.
Ndume, a lawmaker from Borno State, said Nigeria could not afford to go to war, noting that its people would bear the brunt of any military engagement. According to him, it would be unconstitutional for Nigeria to go to war with Niger without the approval of the National Assembly of Nigeria and the United Nations Security Council.
Ndume’s comments were echoed by another ECOWAS parliamentarian, Hadja Satu Camara, who said that citizens must be considered before any other political sentiments. Camara said that the current economic dispensation in West Africa does not favour war as the best solution to oust the military junta in the Republic of Niger.
A fellow Nigerian lawmaker dissented to Ndume’s view. According to Hon Bayo Olusegun Balogun, am intervention must not necessarily connote war or violence against Niger and its people. He stated that military intervention does not mean declaring war against Niger as a nation but would be a declaration of war against the military junta.
Balogun added that the military junta in Niger, who have refused to relinquish power, must be dealt with to serve as precedence for any other set of people nursing the ambition of a coup. He said ECOWAS would be seen as a “toothless bulldog” if an intervention did not occur.
Similarly, Hon Billay Tunkara of the Gambian national assembly said that there is a need to make a bold statement and end the pattern of military coups in the sub-region of ECOWAS.
