Politics

Mali ‘not totally inflexible’ on ECOWAS bloc, says Senegalese president

Published

4 months ago

June 3, 2024

During his first official visit to Mali on Thursday, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal said he discussed the issue of remaining with regional bloc, ECOWAS, with his counterpart in Mali, who was “not inflexible” on the matter.

Reversing decades of regional integration, Mali and its neighbouring military-junta-run countries, Niger and Burkina Faso, declared in January that they would be leaving ECOWAS, the principal political and economic organization in West Africa.

The three countries have united to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a defence and cooperation pact, to form a confederation. After winning the election in March, Senegalese President Faye declared he would attempt to convince Colonel Assimi Goita-led Malian junta to stay in ECOWAS.

“I spent a lot of time discussing it with the colonel,” Faye said on Malian state radio on Thursday.

“I understand the Malian position, which, although rigid, is not inflexible.”
In addition to bilateral cooperation, he stated that all sides needed to collaborate to discover constructive ways to fortify integration “by trying to correct the blunders that we have noted in multilateral cooperation.”

“But we cannot resign ourselves to watching a tool for integration that was formidable in its conception, in the results it has brought us and which has been held up as an example, disintegrate without doing anything,” Faye said.

In written letters dated January 29, the three Sahel states formally informed the ECOWAS Commission of their decisions to exit the union. As per the terms of the treaty, this meant that they would remain bound by their membership for a year following that day. On Thursday, Faye paid a visit to Captain Ibrahim Traore, the head of Burkina Faso’s junta, in the country’s capital, Ouagadougou.

“We also discussed the subject of ECOWAS; I understand today that the positions are somewhat fixed, but I perceive in each of these positions a window of opening that allows us to establish a thread of dialogue,” Faye said, according to the Burkinabe presidency’s communications department.

Related Topics:Featured Mali Senegal Sonko

Click to comment

Politics

Nigerian Air Force adds 34 Italian planes, helicopters

Published

4 hours ago

October 15, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s air force is acquiring 24 Italian-made M-346 attack jets and ten AW-109 Trekker helicopters as part of a fleet renewal strategy, a spokesperson said on Monday.

Air Force spokesperson, Olusola Akinboyewa, said in a statement that a team led by Nigeria’s Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar met with executives from Italy’s Leonardo S.p.A, the manufacturer, in Rome who confirmed the first three M-346 aircraft were expected to be delivered by early 2025, with subsequent deliveries running until mid-2026.

The Trekker helicopters are expected by early 2026, Akinboyewa said.

“The M-346 and Trekker acquisitions are key steps towards fleet renewal,” Abubakar was cited as saying, emphasizing the need for a maintenance hub in Nigeria to provide long-term support, particularly for the M-346 fleet.

Nigeria, which has been fighting a 15-year Islamist insurgency against Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the northeast, as well as attacks by armed bandits in the northwest, has increased military spending in recent years.

Nigeria received two “Huey” helicopters in June to go with the two Trekkers it had previously purchased and the twelve American-built A-29 Super Tucano light attack jets it had been given in 2021 to combat rebels.

Wing Loong II drones manufactured in China are still awaiting delivery.

Politics

Cameroon prohibits discussing 91-year-old President Biya’s health

Published

3 days ago

October 12, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

In response to growing suspicion that 91-year-old President Paul Biya was ill, Cameroon has banned any talk regarding Biya’s health, according to a letter released by the interior ministry.

The reports that the president had been unwell were brushed off as “pure fantasy” by the administration, which released comments earlier this week stating that he was in good condition and on a private visit to Geneva.

Paul Atanga Nji, the interior minister, stated that talking about the president’s health was a matter of national security in a letter to regional governors dated October 9.

“Therefore, it is strictly forbidden to have any discussion about the president’s condition in the media going forward.” The whole weight of the law would be applied to offenders, Nji stated.

He gave the governors orders to form teams to keep an eye on social media and private media broadcasts.

If Biya passed away or was too sick to hold office, the oil- and cocoa-producing nation of Cameroon—which has only had two presidents since gaining independence from France and Britain in the early 1960s—would probably be faced with a difficult succession situation.

The National Communication Council, Cameroon’s media regulator, could not be reached for comment at this time. Many criticised the action as an example of state censorship.

“The president is elected by Cameroonians and it’s just normal that they worry about his whereabouts,” said Hycenth Chia, a Yaounde-based journalist and talk show host on privately owned television Canal2 International.

“We see liberal discussions on the health of Joe Biden and other world leaders, but here it is a taboo,” he told Reuters.

Committee to Protect Journalists, an advocacy group for press freedom, expressed its deep concern.

“Trying to hide behind national security on such a major issue of national importance is outrageous,” said Angela Quintal, head of the CPJ’s Africa Program.

Since early September, when Biya attended a China-Africa summit in Beijing, she has not been sighted in public. His absence at a summit in France last weekend, which was scheduled, fuelled even more public speculation about his health.

President Biya is one of several long-serving African leaders, including Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who has been in office since 1982, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame is also gradually evolving into the group.