Antony Blinken, United States secretary of state, has commended President Bola Tinubu\u2019s leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the Niger Republic crisis.<\/p>\n
Blinken spoke with the president via phone on Monday, according to a statement released by the US state department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Secretary commended President Tinubu\u2019s leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Second Extraordinary Summit on the situation in the Republic of Niger,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe noted the importance of maintaining pressure on the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) to restore constitutional order and to see President Mohamed Bazoum and his family released.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a tweet, Blinken said: \u201cSpoke to Nigerian President Tinubu to commend his leadership of the Economic Community of West African States and discussed shared efforts to restore constitutional order in Niger.\u201d<\/p>\n
ECOWAS has led the international community in the aftermath of the Niger coup.<\/p>\n
A few hours after the July 26 coup, Tinubu condemned the development, saying ECOWAS would not tolerate anti-democratic acts in the region.<\/p>\n
The ECOWAS chairperson also vowed that the bloc would do everything possible to ensure that peace returns to Niger and to the West African subregion.<\/p>\n
In the union\u2019s first meeting on the development, ECOWAS reeled out a host of sanctions on Niger including the closure of all land and air borders between ECOWAS member countries and Niger, and an ECOWAS \u2018no fly zone\u2019 on all commercial flights to and from Niger.<\/p>\n
Others included suspension of all commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS member states and Niger, and a halt in the supply of electricity to the landlocked nation.<\/p>\n
The bloc also ordered the junta to reinstate Bazoum or risk military intervention.<\/p>\n
Days after the junta defied the bloc\u2019s deadline, ECOWAS reconvened for a second summit and ordered the deployment of standby military troops.<\/p>\n
Tinubu said ECOWAS remains committed to supporting Niger achieve democratic stability.<\/p>\n
Former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari had also lauded Tinubu\u2019s leadership in resolving the Niger crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Antony Blinken, United States secretary of state, has commended President Bola Tinubu\u2019s leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the Niger Republic crisis. Blinken spoke with the president via phone on Monday, according to a statement released by the US state department. \u201cThe Secretary commended President Tinubu\u2019s leadership of the Economic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-1341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1343,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions\/1343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}