Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has suggested that the country’s intervention in Benin Republic should be the model whenever democracy is threatened in the sub-region or Africa at large but on the request of the authorities of the distressed member-state of ECOWAS or the African Union (AU).
The Minister said this on Thursday in an interview on the sideline of the ongoing 95th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers meeting in Abuja, stressing that Nigeria will be happy to assist and support member-states in distress.
Nigeria reacted swiftly by deploying fighter jets to the Benin Republic to hinder a group of army officers who had attempted to seize power in the neighbouring West African country on Sunday, which largely led to the coup being thwarted.
He said: “Well, we are all aware of what transpired in the Republic of Benin and the fast reaction that followed and the coordination to ensure that democracy remains untampered in Benin and it was successful, and it is an exemplar of what really should obtain whenever democracy is under threat in our region and indeed on the African continent as a whole.
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“Of course, the foundation of all of this is the close working relationship and understanding between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. And it stands as an example to other countries to use the individual agency.
“My brother and I were communicating with each other from the very beginning and the fast reaction and communication between us and several of our colleagues is what led to the thwarting of this attempt to undermine democracy by way of an unconstitutional change of government.
“So, it’s individual agency, it’s the understanding and the long relationship and history between the two countries and also for us in Nigeria, it is standing by President Tinubu’s administration’s four Ds of which, as you know, we keep repeating, it’s democracy, it’s demography, it’s development, it’s diaspora and democracy always gets mentioned as the first of the four Ds.”
Tuggar also disclosed that talks were on to resolve the issue of Nigeria’s plane and soldiers detained in Burkina Faso, which the authorities in Ouagadougou claimed was a violation of their airspace, which Nigeria denied.
Tuggar said: “So with regards to the plane in Burkina Faso, I’m in touch with my counterpart, Minister Traore of Burkina Faso, and discussing how we can resolve this delicate matter as quickly as possible. So it’s something that is being handled diplomatically. Are the soldiers still there? Yes, they are.”
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He stressed that what the plane did was the right thing to have done under such circumstances, saying “It was on its way to Portugal and it developed a technical problem and was forced to land. And this is part of ICAO’s regulations.
“When you’re flying and you have a problem, you land in the nearest airport and it can happen to anybody. Tomorrow it can be a Burkina Faso plane flying, let’s say, to Kenya or somewhere and then it’s forced to land in Kano or Maiduguri anywhere else. It can be any other country.”
