The immediate past governor of Kaduna, Nasir el-Rufai has warned the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) against military intervention in Niger Republic.
It would be recalled that the chairperson of ECOWAS, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said the bloc had resolved to use force as a last option if the coup leaders in Niger do not relinquish power to ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
Meanwhile, ECOWAS had last Thursday, after a meeting of the bloc’s defence chiefs in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, said it had begun the activation of its standby force in Niger.
Despite that the defence chiefs had backed calls for dialogue as a mediation tactic, it said all elements that would go into any military intervention, which include the timing, resources needed and how, where and the day to deploy such force had been worked out and were being refined.
However, El-Rufail, in a tweet on Tuesday, said a war within the sub-region would be a war between brothers.
He tweeted, “As ECOWAS beats the drums of war, I recall the 1970s rock classic by Dire Straits – ‘Brothers in Arms’, because a war within our subregion is a war between brothers.”
“Indeed, the people of Niger Republic are one and the same with those living in Northern Nigeria. Let us bend therefore over backwards to avoid this civil war between brothers.”
El-Rufai’s call to avoid military intervention in Niger is the latest from stakeholders in Nigeria’s northern region, after the Northern Senators Forum (NSF) had also asked Tinubu to exhaust all diplomatic means in resolving the crisis.
