War imminent as ECOWAS rejects Niger’s junta 3 years transition

The Economic Community of West African States has rejected the Niger junta’s objective for a transition of power presumably to a democratic government within three years.

This is as Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea have volunteered fighter jets in aid of the military junta in Niger in the event of an invasion by ECOWAS.

General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the head of the military junta, stated on television that “our ambition is not to confiscate power.” According to him, any change in leadership “would not go beyond three years.”

But in a live interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily Monday, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, the ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace, and Security, said that the West African bloc rejected it.

“This offer is completely unacceptable and ECOWAS insists on the restoration of constitutional order as quickly as possible,” he said, arguing that the commission had the experience of “these cat-and-mouse games with these military regimes.”

Musah cited the creation of Niger’s “new” constitution in 2010, which he said was revised in 2017.

“What dramatic change do you need in the governance architecture of the country to require three years to experiment with something else? This is like subterfuge to throw ECOWAS off-course and then do whatever they want,” he said.

“In some other countries under the military regime in West Africa, they had about three years, and already they are ‘negotiating’ with their population to have another 18 months. Even a democratically elected president in Nigeria has only four years to run.

“So, what legitimacy do they have to already begin with three years? And we know it is not going to end there.”

PoliticsNow recall that the new military leader of Niger declared on Saturday that the transfer of power would not last more than three years and cautioned that anyone participating in an attack on the nation would not have an easy time.