Why Nigeria Should Restore Niger's Access To Electricity - Fani-Kayode
According to Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister of aviation, Nigeria should bring energy back to the Niger Republic because the action is harming the nation's defenseless population.
Fani-Kayode said there is inflation in the West African country, citizens struggle to have access to cash, and people are living in the dark in a now-deleted Saturday tweet titled "Does Killing Nigerien Babies Bring Glory to Our Name?"
He bemoaned additional humanitarian problems, such as hospitals being unable to power their incubators and other life-supporting machinery, and the reported deaths of at least 40 innocent newborns in Niger.
The leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) questioned how Nigeria could harm innocent people who reside just across the border and impose such wickedness and suffering on them.
He consequently pleaded with President Bola Tinubu, who serves as the ECOWAS Chairman, to bring energy back to the Niger Republic.
Part of the post says: "This is all the more so, given that cutting off electricity to that nation is causing more death, suffering, and hardship to the women and children there than to their government leaders and members of the recently erected military junta.
"Even if there were power outages prior to the sanctions, they often only lasted a few hours. However, currently outages can continue up to 18 hours each day.
"How can we as a country harm innocent people who live right over our border and who are fundamentally our people as well, unleash such cruelty and misfortune on them?
This is unacceptable, especially in light of the fact that we don't have a conflict with Niger and the vast majority of our people consider them to be family.
This raises the question, "Are our African neighbors and brothers to be treated in this manner even while we pretend to prefer and seek a diplomatic resolution to the crisis? I don't think so.
"Is it really serving our goal to kill the children of the very same people we claim we want to aid if our claim and intention are to improve the lives of these people by insisting that they have a democratically elected Government and by opposing a military one?
"Once more, does this murky and bloody approach advance better relations with other African nations and our own national and security interests?
"Does enforcing sanctions and policies, such as cutting off electricity supplies, that, albeit unintentionally, directly result in the deaths of defenseless infants and innocent babies serve our cause, bring honor to our name, or lend credence or legitimacy to our so-called war and search for democracy? I seriously doubt it.
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