President Bola Tinubu has stated that he has prevented the Economic Community of West African States from using its military option in response to the Niger Republic situation.
On Saturday, Tinubu hosted US Presidential Envoy and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Ambassador Molly Phee, in the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The President also charged the US administration with ensuring that its policy is deliberately collaborative with independent African democracies at a time when they are under attack from anti-democratic elements both within and outside the continent.
In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, the President stated that ECOWAS had gone to great lengths to deploy diplomatic tools to resolve the conflict peacefully.
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The statement reads, “We are deep in our attempts to peacefully settle the issue in Niger by leveraging our diplomatic tools. I continue to hold ECOWAS back, despite its readiness for all options, in order to exhaust all other remedial mechanisms. War is not ideal for my economic reforms, nor for the region, but the defence of democracy is sacrosanct. The ECOWAS consensus is that we will not allow anyone to insincerely buy time.”
The President noted that American-backed development finance and multilateral institutions, which were designed to support war-torn Europe after World War II, require swift and comprehensive reform to meet the developmental requirements of younger democracies in Africa, which operate in authoritarian-crowded environments.
He said, “Yes, the private sector will lead the way within an enabling environment we create for them, but the U.S. Government must be innovative in its thinking and systematically create incentives for the U.S. industrial investment in Nigeria. Under my leadership, Nigeria stands ready to address its specific regulatory, tax, and environmental concerns. I am determined to create prosperity for all Nigerian families.”
The US president also invited Tinubu to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City to advance discussions further in late September.
Phee said, “We know there is more we can do to incentivize large-scale American investment in Nigeria and we are committed to working closely with you to achieve that, as part of efforts to strengthen the Nigerian economy and the regional economy. We appreciate your willingness to create an enabling environment for that. President Joe Biden is asking to meet with you on the sidelines of UNGA and you are the only African leader he has requested to meet. It is a mark of his high regard for your leadership.”
The President concluded that he had accepted the invitation to meet Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and that the work of perfecting democracy is never done, even in developed democracies, as seen recently in America, as well as other emerging democracies in the world.
