The coup-hit nations of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso on Saturday ruled out returning to the West Africa regional bloc whose division could further jeopardize regional efforts to curb the violence spreading across the region.<\/p>\n
Military junta leaders of the three countries met for their first summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger, after their withdrawal from the West Africa bloc known as ECOWAS in January.<\/p>\n
They accused the bloc of failing its mandate and pledged to consolidate their union \u2013 the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) \u2014 created last year amid fractured relations with neighbors.<\/p>\n
The nearly 50-year-old ECOWAS has become \u201ca threat to our states,\u201d Niger\u2019s military leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to create an AES of the peoples, instead of an ECOWAS whose directives and instructions are dictated to it by powers that are foreign to Africa,\u201d Tchiani said.<\/p>\n
The meeting of the three countries that border one another comes a day before an ECOWAS summit in Nigeria where other heads of state in the region are to meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s up to us today to make the confederation alliance of Sahelian states an alternative to all bogus regional groupings, by building a sovereign community of people,\u201d Tchiani said.<\/p>\n
Analysts say the two meetings show the deep division in ECOWAS, which has emerged as the top political authority for its 15 member states before the unprecedented decision of the three countries to withdraw their membership.<\/p>\n
Agreements on security non-aggression pacts, as well as economic, monetary, and social domains, were signed by Presidents Assimi Goita of Mali, Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso, and Abdourahamane Tiani of Niger.<\/p>\n
This summit took place just before the upcoming West African body meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. Starting Saturday 6 July, 2024.<\/p>\n
Mali will hold the rotating presidency of the AES for one year, while Burkina Faso will host the organization’s parliamentary summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The coup-hit nations of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso on Saturday ruled out returning to the West Africa regional bloc whose division could further jeopardize regional efforts to curb the violence spreading across the region. Military junta leaders of the three countries met for their first summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger, after their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":11,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Africa News","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[1626,208,41,187,383],"class_list":["post-12385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-alliance-of-sahel-states","tag-burkina-faso","tag-ecowas","tag-mali","tag-niger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}