West Africa Defence Chiefs to Discuss Possible Military Action in Niger Republic 

Military chiefs from the West African bloc, ECOWAS, will meet in Ghana this week to discuss possible intervention in Niger, military and political sources in the region said yesterday.

On that day, human rights activists in Niger said they couldn’t access top political officials detained after the coup nearly three weeks earlier.

This is even as US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said there was still space for diplomacy to reverse the coup in Niger and lauded President Bola Tinubu for his leadership on the crisis in Niger.

The meeting on Thursday and Friday, originally scheduled for last weekend but shift, occurred after ECOWAS leaders approved the deployment of a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger. This action followed the toppling of the president on July 26.

Their summit, held in the Nigerian capital Abuja last Thursday, also reaffirmed the bloc’s preference for a diplomatic outcome.