A Member of Parliament and United Kingdom’s Minister of State for the Armed Forces, James Heappey on Wednesday visited Nigeria.
Heappey during the visit where met with Nigeria’s military chiefs and top defence leaders which include the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja; the Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru and the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Heappey, whose meeting with the Nigerian military chiefs and leaders was to deepen defence cooperation between the UK and Nigeria and discuss the coup in Niger Republic, also met with the President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Omar Touray.
At the meeting, the UK defence minister reiterated the UK’s support for ECOWAS’ ongoing diplomatic efforts to ensure a peaceful return to the democracy system in the Niger Republic by the junta who took over power from the elected President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26th.
“I’m delighted to return to Nigeria for the third time in three years. The UK and Nigerian armed forces have a longstanding partnership through which we continue to tackle violent extremism and other security threats in West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea.
“The UK supports ECOWAS in calling for the peaceful restoration of constitutional order and democracy in Niger and we’ll work with both ECOWAS and our partners across West Africa to support them in that aim,” Heappey said.
According to him, the UK recognised Nigeria’s diplomatic mediation efforts to peacefully restore democracy in Niger through its membership of ECOWAS. He therefore condemned in the strongest terms, the ongoing coup Niger.
He said, “We stand with ECOWAS in condemnation of the illegal detention of President Mohamed Bazoum, his family, and members of the government, as well as the unacceptable conditions under which they are being held, and call for their immediate release.”
The ECOWAS has maintained a diplomatic approach to get the Niger coup leaders to restore constitutional power to the ousted president after the Niger military leaders refused to adhere to the West African regional bloc’s one week deadline to relinquish power to President Bazoum.
The ECOWAS special envoy led by former Nigerian Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar, on Tuesday said that diplomacy won’t fail to restore the democratically elected government of the deposed President Bazoum who has been held hostage by the junta since the July coup.
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