West African army chiefs will hold a second and final day of talks today in Ghana’s capital Accra, where they have been hashing out the details of a possible military intervention in Niger if diplomacy fails to reverse a military coup.
Military officers deposed Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum on twenty-sixth of July and have defied calls from the United Nations, the West African bloc ECOWAS and others to reinstate him, prompting the regional powers to order a standby force to be assembled.
ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Abdel-Fatau Musah said at the start of the event on Thursday, that the bloc’s fifteen member states were prepared to participate in the standby force excluding those also under military rule – Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea – and Cape Verde.
