A member of the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament, Peter Toobu, has urged the government to push the ECOWAS to lessen the sanctions on Niger to aid the safe return of Ghanaian traders and drivers stuck in Niger.

This follows reports of several attacks on Ghanaian traders and drivers carting food exports from Niger to Ghana by bandits.

So far, over 10 Ghanaian trucks have been set ablaze and one Ghanaian driver is receiving treatment in a Nigerien hospital after suffering gunshot wounds at the Niger-Burkina Faso border.

According to the Deputy Defence Minister, Kwesi Amankwaa, Ghana will not be able to offer protection to these traders and truck drivers as they are currently outside the country’s jurisdiction.

He has warned traders in the country not to enter Niger citing the high levels of insecurity and uncertainty in the region following the recent coup and the surge in banditry.

However, reacting to the Minister’s statement, Peter Toobu said the government should push ECOWAS to lessen the sanctions on Niger.

According to him, ECOWAS should not have immediately imposed blanket sanctions on Niger taking into consideration the trade relations with the country.

He said any sanctions should have been gradual and should have left ample space for negotiations and other diplomatic moves.

The failure to exhaust all diplomatic avenues, he said, is what has resulted in the perilous situation business people from Ghana and other countries are facing in Niger.

“The point is ECOWAS was so much in a hurry to place sanctions on Niger. ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso, ECOWAS suspended Mali. So that whole area, in terms of protocol, ECOWAS does not have control. So, there are a lot of bandits, there are a lot of jihadists within the system.

“At the point that Niger coup happened, we were expecting some kind of strategic movement towards imposing sanctions very slowly but surely we’ll arrive there so that we’ll have space to allow many of our business men and women who are already trapped in the system to get out, and gradually we would have gotten there.

“But if you suspend them and impose sanctions straight away, they’ll also stop doing what they used to do, escorting traders to the border of Burkina Faso and handing them over. Now they’re not ready to escort anybody, you place sanctions on them, and you cannot go in there just as the defence minister is saying.

“The Ghanaian soldiers cannot go in there and bring our traders so they’re stuck in there and whatever will happen to them is as a result of not so much deeper thinking regarding how we handled this Niger matter,” he said.

He said Ghana should push ECOWAS to reopen negotiations with Niger and lessen the sanctions to allow the safe return of traders and their drivers from the country.

He said if that is done, the junta could be convinced to offer protection to traders and their drivers as they exit the country.

“The state can push ECOWAS and ECOWAS should be able to do more. And that’s the beginning of negotiation. I mean, it’s a trump-card the people of Niger have, it’s a trump-card your citizens are stuck in there.

“You want your citizens out, and we also have a challenge, you’ve placed sanction on us so can we jaw-jaw, what can we do to support your citizens get back home safely and what can you also do to lessen the sanctions you’ve placed on us?

“I’m sure that if ECOWAS begins to talk to the junta, they’ll find a way the junta can actually escort our traders to the Burkina border and we can actually get them home,” he said.