African Union Calls for Targeted Sanctions on Niger Republic’s Military Junta, Endorses ECOWAS Measures

Yesterday, the African Union (AU) directed its commission to assemble a roster of individuals involved in the military junta in the Niger Republic, as well as their backers, for potential targeted sanctions and specific punitive actions.

This comes on top of sanctions previously set by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders, which received the AU’s support.

Furthermore, the AU has requested a review concerning the effects of the ECOWAS standby force, in light of ECOWAS’s warning to use military intervention if the coup leaders don’t reinstate democratic rule and return the deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to his position.

It’s noteworthy that ECOWAS has dismissed the new military government’s three-year timeline in the Sahel nation for the reinstatement of democracy.

On the same day, Nigeria’s previous military leader and the head of the ECOWAS delegation to Niger, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, officially shared the military junta’s terms for resolving the political turmoil in the country with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

In a separate incident, state television reported that presumed armed Islamist militants had claimed the lives of 12 soldiers in a remote area of Niger’s South-West.