The Federal Government on Wednesday condemned Tuesday coup d’état in Mali by mutineering soldiers.
The
PUNCH had earlier reported that rebel soldiers took President Ibrahim
Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse into custody on Tuesday afternoon
and drove the pair to a military base on the outskirts of Bamako, which
they had seized that morning.
Keita, whose government had been
beset by months of protests over economic stagnation, corruption and a
brutal Islamist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives, later
announced early Wednesday that he had resigned to avoid “bloodshed”.
“If
it pleased certain elements of our military to decide this should end
with their intervention, do I really have a choice?” he said of the
day’s events.(I must) submit to it, because I don’t want any bloodshed,”
the ousted 75-year-old president said in a television broadcast.
The
coup’s leaders appeared on television hours later to pledge a political
transition and new elections within a “reasonable time”. Malian Air
Force deputy Chief of Staff, Ismael Wague, said he and his fellow
officers had “decided to take responsibility in front of the people and
of history”.
Reacting on Wednesday, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, tweeted, “The Nigerian Government
unequivocally condemns the coup d’état that took place in Mali yesterday
and demands the immediate and unconditional restoration of
constitutional order. We welcome the urgent activation of the ECOWAS
Standby force.”
Nigeria’s President, Major General Muhammadu
Buhari (retd.), alongside some ECOWAS leaders, had in July travelled to
Bamako on a peace-keeping mission but the meeting with the protest
leader, Imam Dicko, ended in a stalemate.
Meanwhile, the Economic
Community of West African States also condemned the coup, pledging to
close land and air borders to Mali and push for sanctions against “all
the putschists and their partners and collaborators”.
The 15-nation bloc which includes Mali also said that it would suspend the country from its internal decision-making bodies.
UN
Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, demanded the “immediate and
unconditional release” of Keita and Cisse as diplomats in New York said
the Security Council would hold emergency talks on Wednesday.
The
United States and France also released separate statements voicing deep
concern about the turn of events and urged against regime change.
French
President Emmanuel Macron condemned the mutiny, according to his
office, and said he supported mediation efforts to resolve the crisis by
other West African states.
The US envoy to the region, Peter
Pham, joined the calls for restraint and echoed its opposition to any
“extraconstitutional” change.
Jubilant crowds have, however,
gathered in the capital to cheer the rebels as they take over the
government of the Sahelian nation.
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