“We have four former military heads of state that are alive – Buhari, the most-recent, Abdulsalami, Babangida and Gowon, who can intervene. I am assuring you that if this four are given the mandate, with the help of our respected elder statesmen and politicians, the issue of Niger will be resolved,” he stated.
At a media parley in Maiduguri, Saturday evening, Ndume wrote off the ECOWAS-imposed sanctions on the neighbouring francophone country as miscalculated and ineffective.
Ndume described the sanctions as breaching ECOWAS Protocols and International Law.
“The sanctions are not affecting the military junta,” he maintained, saying, “The sanctions are affecting the poor people that are not part of the coup; and these are people, especially children, women, petty traders and poor middle income earners.”
Ndume pointed out that “Even the International law that guides us do not support sanctions that affect humanitarian needs,” maintaining, “The suffering people of Niger Republic are going through is more than imaginable.”
He appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the current ECOWAS Chairman, to rise up towards the immediate lifting of the sanctions and addressing the crisis,
“I am one of those against the actions taken by the ECOWAS leadership to impose sanctions on Niger, ”
“I believe strongly that that decision was rushed and it was not the right thing,” he stated.
The Senate Appropriation Committee Vice Chairman added, “I don’t support those sanctions because the decision affects me, affects my state and affects my region.
“I say so because for the past 12 years, despite the poverty level of Niger, when we were in trouble, driven, destroyed, killed by Boko Haram Niger was the safest place for us to go.
“Over 100,000 Nigerians, Borno State citizens from Abadam, Guzamala, Kukawa and other places all migrated to Niger, and they received them with open arms. Not putting them in the camp, but taking them to their own house la and they have been their for more than 10 years now”.
Ndume noted that for ages people from eight Northern Nigerian states criss-cross the Nigeria-Niger Republic border, interacting freely with the people of that francophone country, because they share the same religion, cultures and values, divided only by geographical boundaries.
