By John Ikani
Mali’s junta announced on Sunday that it will quit a West African anti-jihadist force after it was blocked from assuming the presidency of the regional group.
The alliance known as the Group of five (G5) Sahel also includes Chad, Mauritania, Niger, and Burkina Faso.
The G5 Joint Force was created in 2017 to shore up efforts to establish order on the countries’ common border regions.
But it has been hobbled by a lack of funding and has struggled to reduce the violence.
“The government of Mali is deciding to withdraw from all the organs and bodies of the G5 Sahel, including the joint force” fighting the jihadists, the country’s military junta said in a statement on Sunday.
The statement by Mali’s junta, which ousted former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in a 2020 coup, also blamed a lack of progress in the fight against the militants and the failure to hold recent meetings in Mali.
A Summit of the G5 heads of state was slated to take place in Mali’s capital Bamako in February this year.
It was due to mark “the start of the Malian presidency of the G5”.
However, the conference “has still not taken place”, the statement said.
Bamako “firmly rejects the argument of a G5 member state which advances the internal national political situation to reject Mali’s exercising the G5 Sahel presidency”, the statement said, without identifying the nation.
There has been no comment yet from other G5 members over Mali’s announcement.
Mali’s withdrawal could further isolate the country whose economy has been hit by sanctions since the coup.
