By Umaru Fofana
Sierra Leone has agreed to contribute troops to the crisis-ridden Niger where the army overthrew the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum in July, prompting West African heads of state to put on standby the ECOWAS Standing Force.
Minister of Information, Chernor Bah told Politico that the country would be contributing troops to the force that should move into the former French colony to reinstate the ousted president.
“Sierra Leone had made a long-standing pledge to contribute troops to ECOWAS’ standing force. That pledge has not changed. We remain ready whenever called upon to honour our contribution to ECOWAS with a company of troops and the necessary equipment to carry out any approved mission”, Bah said.
He would not state the absolute number of soldiers, with a company varying between 100 and 300 troops. “The number of soldiers will be based on the assessment of ECOWAS defense chiefs and the need of the specific mission,” he said.
ECOWAS heads of state have asked their defence chiefs to prepare a plan for the intervention, while wide-ranging and far-reaching sanctions have also been slammed on Niger and the junta leaders led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani who took over on 26 July 2023.
Bah said Sierra Leone owed a moral obligation to contribute troops to the regional bloc. “As a beneficiary of ECOWAS peace and democracy intervention, we particularly understand the need to fulfil our obligation as part of the bloc,” he said.
ECOWAS intervened in Sierra Leone to help end the war but also to reinstate the elected government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah following his ouster in a coup in 1997.
On Thursday, west African leaders met in Abuja and adopted their earlier stance of going into Niger to boot out the junta. Speaking after that second ECOWAS heads of state summit on Niger since the coup, the president of Ivory Coast, Alhassane Ouattara, said it was a critical problem they needed to be solved. He stressed on the body’s zero-tolerance position on coups.
“ECOWAS cannot accept this. This is not a matter of Nigeria against Niger…The decision that we have made today – and I hope it will be implemented immediately – is a decision of ECOWAS” Ouattara said.
“All the heads of state think that we have tried dialogue with the putschists of Niger. We have sent delegations…to talk to them. But they are keeping President Bazoum as a hostage…And we cannot let this continue. We have to act…We will not accept coup d’états”, the Ivorian president stressed.
He said the coup leaders must allow the ousted president to continue to govern. “If they don’t let President Bazoum out to be able to exercise his mandate, I think we should move ahead and get them out”, Ouattara said.
ECOWAS has roundly condemned the recent coups in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso but has fallen short of threatening the use of force to reinstate the ousted presidents. But the body have used force in the past such as in Sierra Leone in 1997, and more recently in The Gambia where the then president Yahya Jammeh reneged on stepping down after he had lost an election to Adama Barrow.
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