Reports coming in from Nigeria say Senators have rejected the request by the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for permission to deploy Nigerian troops to Niger Republic as part of an ECOWAS force to reinstate the democratically elected president of the country, President Mohamed Bazoum.
ECOWAS leaders at a meeting in Abuja, four days after the coup d’état that toppled the Bazoum government, gave the coup leaders a seven-day ultimatum to restore the democratically elected government or face the possible use of force. The regional body also imposed sanctions on the coup leaders with Nigeria also cutting electricity supplies and closing its borders with its Sahelian neighbour.
West African defence chiefs who held a meeting in Abuja on Friday said they had drawn a plan for military action as part of which President Tinubu wrote the Senate for permission to involve Nigerian troops in the action.
However, at an executive session on Saturday, the senators rejected the request by the president. According to reports from the Nigerian online news platform, Premium Times, Over 90 per cent of senators who spoke were against military action, the news platform reported.
The Premium Times, quoted a Senator as saying that senators agreed to pass a resolution condemning the coup and to commend ECOWAS leaders on their efforts to restore constitutional order in Niger, but they ruled out military options.
The Senator was also quoted as saying that “almost all the senators spoke and totally ruled out the military option because of many factors and also because of the harmonious relationship that Nigeria and Niger have always enjoyed.”
The report added further that “Senators instead urged President Tinubu to intensify negotiation with the coup leaders by again sending a high-powered delegation to Niamey. Someone suggested that elder-statesmen like Obasanjo, Gen Ali Gusau and Abdulsalam Abubakar should be sent as special envoys to dialogue and seek a diplomatic solution.”
The Senators also expressed the view that the government should focus on solving the internal security challenges, the report stated.
