Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has dispelled reports of wrongdoing over the landing of its C-130 aircraft in Burkina Faso, insisting the touchdown was a precautionary measure taken after the crew detected a technical issue mid-flight. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Director of Public Relations and Information, Air...
Burkina Faso
The world will not be in a hurry to forget Donald Trump’s address last Thursday to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. While UNGA addresses have become something of an annual ritual among world leaders, the occasional brilliant speech and touching rhetoric can sometimes touch the...
David Aguele, a Nigerian citizen, and the Centre for Community Law (CfCL), an NGO, have jointly sued the President of the ECOWAS Commission and the Council of Ministers at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (CCJ), challenging the regional organisation’s decision to retain in its employment staff members from Mali, Burkina...
In a sweeping rejection of international oversight, the military-led governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger Republic have announced their joint withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), declaring they no longer recognize its authority. In a strongly worded statement, the three Sahelian nations described the ICC as an...
Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa) has raised concerns about the growing wave of military rule across West and Central Africa, warning that it jeopardizes democratic progress, stability, and regional unity. Director of CDD-West Africa, Dr. Dauda Garuba, addressed this issue in Abuja on Wednesday during the...
Director-General of the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), Dr. Melchior AISSI, said on Wednesday that the organization had over the decades, worked with determination to harmonise health policies, build national capacity, prevent epidemics, improve access to essential healthcare, and promote the local production of medicines and vaccines. In a statement he issued...
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Council of Ministers has convened a meeting in Accra, Ghana, to deliberate on the withdrawal of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from the regional bloc. The Chairman of the Council, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Amb. Yusuf Tuggar, made this known...
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have announced a new 0.5% levy on imported goods from Nigeria and other Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member-nations. The development comes as they seek to fund a new three-state union after leaving the larger regional economic bloc, they said in a...
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Christopher Musa, has said the Armed Forces of Nigeria is committed to working with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in spite of their withdrawal from ECOWAS. Musa gave the assurance on Thursday in Abuja, when he received a delegation of the Sahelian...
ECOWAS is struggling to whip its wayward member States into line, but the list of leaders undermining the principles and objectives of the 15-nation West African regional economic bloc is growing. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which proclaimed themselves the Alliance of Sahel States, AES, are making every effort...
In the aftermath of the announcement on 28 January 2024 by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic denouncing the Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and leaving the regional bloc “without delay”, reactions spanned the spectrum from hubris to hyperbole. From Nigeria, the regional anchor and...
Ahead of the 29 January 2025 deadline for their self-imposed exit from ECOWAS, the junta leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the Alliance of Sahel States, AES, have become jittery, deploying every trick, including disinformation, misinformation and blackmail to deflect blame for the inevitable consequences and uncertainty of their military adventure....
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has said it would continue to engage with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Republic, in spite of their formal withdrawal from the bloc on Wednesday. The President of ECOWAS Commission, Dr Omar Touray, made this known at a news conference in...
A joint force of 5,000 troops from military-led neighbours Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali will soon deploy in their troubled central Sahel region, Niger’s defence chief said on state television. Juntas in the neighbouring West African countries seized control in a series of coups between 2020 and 2023. Last...
There is an emerging reality that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is set to lose three of its founding members – Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger Republic, in one fell swoop. Founded almost 50 years ago on May 28, 1975 to promote the economic growth and...
Frances’s major military base in Cote d’Ivoire is billed to close down at the end of this month. The long -standing base, Port Bouet, is to be rid of its French troop occupants and is to be renamed General Quattara Thomas d’Aquinn base after an indigenous military figure. No...
The authority of ECOWAS heads of state and government on Sunday set Jan. 29, 2025 to July 29, 2025 as a transitional period to keep ECOWAS doors open to Burkina Faso, Republic of Mali and the Republic of Niger. President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Omar Touray, said this...
President Bola Tinubu has said the interest and welfare of the citizens of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger remained priority for leaders of ECOWAS. The President said this on Wednesday while receiving Mr Frank–Walter Steinmeier, the President of Germany, in a State Visit on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa,...
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has strongly condemned the killing of around 200 people in the Burkinabe town of Barsalogho at the weekend, which left a further 140 injured. According to news reports, it was the latest terror attack by the Al Qaeda-linked militant group known as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam...
It is often said that the worst democracy is far better than the best dictatorship. One does not have to look farther than the northern border of Nigeria to a country with which it shares its longest land border to confirm this truism. Since the government of President Mohammed...