The Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday dismissed the suit by the Niger Republic junta against the region’s Authority of Heads of State and Government.
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 of the junta’s failure to reinstate the ousted President, Mohamed Bazoum.
This pushed the Niger junta to approach the court for a 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 asked the court to compel the Authority of Heads of State and Government to immediately suspend the sanctions.
Delivering judgement on the case, Justice Edward Asante held that he has no prima facie jurisdiction over the substantive application.
He added that the court could not grant the request for interim measures since the additional requirement for the case to be prima facie admissible had not been met.
The Economic Community of West Africa States Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday dismissed the suit by the Niger Republic junta against the region’s Authority of Heads of State and Government.
The court said, “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.
“Consequently, the substantive suit and the request for interim measures presented in the name of Niger, by an unconstitutional and unrecognised governmental authority, were prima facie inadmissible.
“Having concluded that the substantive application before the court was prima facie inadmissible, the court held that the request for interim measures could not be granted. It accordingly dismissed it,” he held.
Concerning the seven non-state applicants suing alongside the Republic of Niger, the court held that they failed to provide specific details regarding the nature and extent of the harm suffered by each of them from the measures imposed on Niger.
