The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court sitting in Abuja, on Thursday, dismissed a request to lift the sanctions imposed by the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government on Niger Republic in the aftermath of the latest coup in the country. Although the court affirmed that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, it ruled that it could not grant the request for interim measures requested by Niger's junta. Recall that the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government led by President Bola Tinubu had on August 8 imposed sanctions on the Niger Republic because the junta failed to reinstate the ousted President, Mohamed Bazoum.
This pushed the Niger junta to approach the court for redress, arguing that the sanctions had impacted negatively on the Nigerien people, including a shortage of food, medicine, and electricity, due to the closure of borders and cut off of electricity supply by Nigeria.
The junta requested the court to compel the Authority of Heads of State and Government to immediately suspend the sanctions.
The president of the court, Edward Asante, who led the three-member panel of the court that gave the decision, held that the junta failed to meet the additional requirement for the case to be admissible, according to the highlights of the judgment released by the court’s communications unit on Thursday.
The two other judges on the panel, Gbéri-bè Ouattara and Dupe Atoki, agreed with the judgment.
The court noted that the junta, lacked prima facie capacity before the Court, making the substantive application prima facie inadmissible.
It held that the substantive application was, on the face of it, inadmissible as it relates to the other applicants within the meaning of Articles 9(2) and 10(c) of the Protocol of the Court.
The court was of the view that an entity, resulting from an unconstitutional change of government, and not acknowledged by ECOWAS as a government of a member state, cannot inherently initiate a case before the court to obtain benefits or reprieve.
