Mali’s transitional president had a meeting on Thursday, October 27 with Mahamadou Issoufou, the former president of Niger.
After a decade as head of state of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou is living a second life. Since he peacefully handed over power to his successor Mohamed Bazoum, he has been called upon all over the world to settle disputes on the international political scene, particularly in the Sahel, a region plagued by political and security conflicts.
Designated mediator of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for Burkina Faso, where he obtained the reduction of the duration of the transition to 24 months instead of the 36 months initially planned by the ruling junta, Mahamadou Issoufou is also the head of an Independent High Level Panel on Security and Development in the Sahel.
It is in this capacity that he visited Mali on Thursday, October 27. Received by the President of the transition, Colonel Assimi Goita, President Issoufou explained that their “discussions focused on the security, institutional, climatic, demographic and economic and social development challenges facing our region.”
“I also discussed with President Goita the security-development assessment mission in the Sahel that the Secretary General of the United Nations has entrusted to me in connection with the African Union, ECOWAS and the G5 Sahel,” Mahamadou Issoufou added.
Indeed, this mission is to “assess the various strategies implemented” in the Sahara-Sahel area and in the countries of the Gulf of Guinea “to combine the efforts of all actors to provide more relevant responses to the challenges of our region,” he said.
For his part, the President of the Malian transition indicated that he had had “exchanges” with his “elder brother,” the President of the Independent High Level Panel on Security and Development in the Sahel. “We have a convergence of views on the Sahel and share the need to pool efforts without interference and in sincerity,” the head of state said on Twitter.
This visit comes against the backdrop of a tense climate between Niger, where Mahamadou Issoufou was president from 2011 to 2021 and Mali.
AC/odl/fss/abj/APA