The government has urged Ghanaian traders to desist from transacting business in Niger due to the ongoing attacks in the country.
This follows a recent shooting and burning of a Ghanaian truck driver’s vehicle in Burkina Faso by unidentified attackers.
Similarly, three trucks transporting food supplies from Niger to Ghana were set ablaze at the Burkina-Faso border.
The Deputy Minister of Defense, Kofi Amankwaa Manu, cautioned, “Obviously once it is outside the jurisdiction of the discussion, it becomes difficult, especially, with all the noise in the sub-region. I don’t think the citizens in Niger are safe. With the coup, uncertainties, and soldiers doing what they want, they are not safe. Coupled with the fact that some countries have also closed borders with them. There have been sanctions and all that, but they are not too certain as to what tomorrow is bringing them. So at this time, it is difficult, so it’s not even safe for anybody to go there to do business. Once you get to the borders, you don’t have control over what happens in the jurisdiction of Burkina Faso.”
“What a Ghanaian security person can do is to help our traders to the Ghanaian border with Burkina and help them over. We all know the situation in Niger, you don’t need a scientist to tell you what’s happening in Niger, and so it’s very difficult for one to now go to Niger to do business. Everyone will have to be careful”.
The coup leader in Niger, Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani, has signed an order allowing the fellow military governments of Mali and Burkina Faso to send their troops into his country to help defend against an attack.
The announcement was made after the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Olivia Rouamba, and Mali, Abdoulaye Diop, visited Gen Tchiani in Niamey on Thursday.
The West African regional bloc Ecowas has threatened to use force to reinstate the democratically elected president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, who was deposed by a group of army officers last month.
Content by: Nii Ayikwei Okine
