The Economic Community of West African States lifted economic sanctions on Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso on Saturday.
ECOWAS’s suspension lift came after extensive discussions at an extraordinary summit on the political, peace, and security situation in the region at the State House, Abuja, by the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government.
According to the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Omar Touray, the suspensions take immediate effect.
Recall that the members of the fifteen-nation bloc excluding Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger, along with the eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union, decided to close all borders with Niger.
They also agreed to suspend financial transactions and freeze the country’s assets in external banks.
The three nations, however, in a joint statement issued by their military leaders, Captain Ibrahim Traoré (Burkina Faso), Colonel Assimi Goita (Mali), and Brigadier General Abdourahamane Tiani (Niger Republic) on January 28, 2023, announced their immediate withdrawal from ECOWAS.
They alleged that ECOWAS had become a threat to its member states.
Meanwhile, ECOWAS insisted that they are still its member.
Below are the economic sanctions lifted:
1. ECOWAS lifted the travel ban on members of the military junta and their families.
2. It lifted the freezing of all financial transactions between ECOWAS states and Niger, including transactions relating to the bloc’s central bank and the unfreezing of all of Niger’s assets at EBID.
3. It also suspended the travel ban on members of the military junta and their families.
4. It suspended sanctions on the election of Mali citizens to ECOWAS positions.
5. It lifted sanctions on Guinea, inviting all four countries to attend technical consultative meetings of ECOWAS going forward.
6. It suspended the closure of borders, including land and air, between the Niger Republic and ECOWAS.
7. It urged its withdrawing member states to reconsider their decision in view of the benefits enjoyed by their citizens.
