THE Movement for Socialist Alternative – MSA, has urged labour and trade unions in Nigeria to mobilize against the planned military intervention of the Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS, following military takeover in Niger.
The group issued this call a statement by its spokesperson, Dagga Tolar.
MSA kicked against the move which the President Bola Tinubu-led ECOWAS were contemplating as a course of action.
Tolar pointed to the war between Russia and Ukraine, while asserting that such military action could lead to a conflict triggered by World powers.
“Insecurity has been the main excuse put forward by the putschists in the whole of the Sahel, including Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and now in Niger. ECOWAS, through its current head Bola Tinubu, president of Nigeria, issued a one-week ultimatum for the junta headed by Abdourahamane Tchiani to hand over power back to the ousted leader still under house arrest in the presidential villa.
“The one-week deadline is gone. The question of a military invasion of Niger to restore bourgeois democracy has become the order of the day, with Tinubu forwarding a letter to the Senate seeking approval for the Nigerian military to go to war.
“Even with the military regimes in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso issuing statements to the fact that any invasion of Niger on the above account is a declaration of war against them as well, they will not watch events hands akimbo.
“We are, therefore, likely faced with the possibility of war in the Sahel, which in all terms will also turn out a proxy war both for French imperialism and its Western allies backing Nigeria and other ECOWAS allied forces on one side and against Niger, with Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and the Wagner mercenary group, and possible also China on the other side.
“All of these forces represent their own selfish ends and ultimately set up the Sahel region as a new front in the New Cold War already seen raging on for one and half years in Ukraine.
“The MSA categorically opposes the war in Niger and calls on the workers and the trade unions in Nigeria to commence a campaign of opposing the Tinubu regime, sending Nigerian troops to Niger.
“This very call must be extended to all of the ECOWAS countries, with workers not only stating their opposition to any military invasion of Niger but as well as organising themselves to fully take their destiny into their own hands by coming into the arena of struggle, and providing leadership for the whole of the working masses inclusive of the rank and file of the military and the police in a struggle against capitalism and imperialism,” the statement by the civic group read.
It will be recalled that ECOWAS held a Second Extraordinary Summit on Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria.
Among resolutions reached was the course of military intervention in Niger should dialogue fail.
Troops were order on “standby” for this eventuality.
A day later, Friday, the African Union Commission threw its weight behind ECOWAS, backing it’s decision.