 Welcome once again to the breakfast here on Plasti via Africa. A couple of months ago, there was of course breaking news that there was a coup in Mali and that of course was followed by yet another coup that took place, of course, led by Conor Lassimi Goitre. Since then, the economic community of West African states, led by of course its leaders and former presidents and the likes across Africa, had stepped in to try and negotiate for a peaceful resolution of the situation in Mali and also asking for a time frame before they can go back to democratic rule. But that hasn't gone very well in the last 24 to 48 hours, there have been more sanctions placed on Mali. We're speaking this morning with Dr. Katch Ononuju, who is a director general at the Heritage Center. Good morning and thanks for joining us, Dr. Ononuju. Thank you very much for having me. Good to see you again. Let's begin by clarifying or going to understand exactly what the situation is in Mali. Where is there some confusion between Ekoas and Conor Lassimi Goitre and of course Romanian of the co-leaders? Well, I will want to say that Ekoas seems to be waking up very late. This crisis started a long before now and then in 2015 there was a peace agreement. I remember I was in Bamako myself and I advised my leaders, including when I came back here speaking to our president and my former boss, President Goodluck, who later was appointed as our misery, and I opinion that the best way to have this issue resolved was to make sure that the other West African leaders are carried along for an implementation of the 2015 peace agreement. It was when some of the leaders, including our president, President Buhari, did not actually do those things and they thought they could do it on their own that you stole the bottlenecks that we've seen. So it is as a consequence of non-implementation of that 2015 peace agreement that you've seen the various coups have come. Primarily, the crisis you see in Nigeria is an overflow of the problem you see in Mali. Why do I say that? In Central Mali, there was a war between the dog bombs and the philandis. And why we say it resolved the Mali crisis because it's like a dam. If you don't resolve that crisis, when the dam burst, it will affect the entire sub-region. And that was why you saw refugees floated into Nigeria. There in Nigeria, we have IDP camps where indigenous people are staying in IDP camps, but the asexual lands are being occupied by refugees from Mali. And because we weren't able to treat this in the way it should be, that's why it has come to affect us today. Now President Buhari is about to leave office. And of course, as you know about land, wherever these refugees occupy land, indigenous people of course go back to their land when the time gets clear. And that seems to be when Buhari is no more in power in Nigeria. That is inevitable. So if they are taking the seriousness that they think they cannot bring now, all alone, I'm sure we may have had a good go ahead in Mali. Because why, if one thing to negotiate is the positive part is implementation of that disagreement. We saw it all in Northern Ireland with the IRA and the Ulster Unionist Party and the United Kingdom government. Now we are seeing it again in the issue of Mali and its spillover that has brought so much of Fulani refugees into Nigeria, so much so that it has forced displacements of indigenous people in essential lands across North Nigeria and of course it is not resolved. And now the leaders think they can give it another go. I repeat what I said earlier, years ago. The right way to solve the Mali crisis is to get the entire West African leaders on the table to forcefully implement the 2015 peace agreement that can get refugees back to their places. If you try to put pressure on the Mali government, what you have is coup and catacombs and catacombs and catacombs as will not seem to have. Okay. Dr. Kachonu Nudru, do you think that the non-implementation of the peace agreement like you have mentioned is a justification for the military junta to want to stay in power for the next four years rather than have an election conducted in next month? Is that enough justification? No, no, no, that's not enough. Yes, I'm also asking if that, because I mean in less than nine months there's been two coups already and that doesn't really tell well for the West African region. So I'd like to show your thoughts on that. Yes, it is not any reason for the military junta to do the coup because the military junta are doing coup actually forecloses any progress in regards to implementation of that 2015 peace agreement because the junta has had their reasons for coup. The other junta do the coup when there was strong pressure from Nigeria and President Goodwill Junta was going there and going there and going there again and because of the pressures some people felt was coming from Nigeria they did that coup to foresaw what they thought the civilian administration would have done if they still were in place. So what I still say it has to be a rich and wild thing. Everybody must come together. Don't leave it for the Malians alone, no, because as I said earlier it's like a dam. When the dam breaks the floor affects everybody in the sub-region as you've seen it affect everybody in the sub-region. They should take it seriously and not leave it as the Malians crisis, now they should not. Let's not look into the sanctions that have been placed. Give us some clarity as to what Ekoas is trying to achieve and what exactly these sanctions are like. Dr. Cornola Simigoyta has said that these sanctions are unfair and they do not represent what Ekoas even stands for. So give us some clarity on that. Well, the sanctions are coming late, the sanctions should have been there yesterday. The military coup was a strategy to undermine the implementation of the peace agreement. That's when the sanctions should have come right when the coup came in. We've allowed them to sit down and they started enjoying the things that come with office and suddenly what would you want to say to them? They just like all Taboos African leaders will want to stay put, will want to give you dates, will want to deceive the population. I don't see any implementation of the peace agreement as far as those soldiers that did the coup are there. So what I think we should topple up on the sanctions. We should put more pressure on them. We should have started this pressure right from the very first week when the soldiers came in because the essence of them coming in was to block the sustained progress of the implementation of the peace agreement. We have to get the soldiers out, put a civilian government in place and then get those people to carry out the peace agreement. With other peace agreements you will continue to have this instability within the Taboos African sub-region as you have seen it affect Nigeria, affect other countries. There were even countries where the people were told if you ever see a manlion with his capital on the street as it was in Ghana, slaughter the capital, don't let them, don't accommodate them. But we have audited them in Nigeria except the way we did it. We didn't do it honestly. We had pretended we were doing agricultural programs, there are notes and today we have IDPs in Nigeria displaced for those foreigners to stay in our villages and I don't see any end to that. That's part of the reason why if you ask me, I will tell you, we are very administrations afraid that should really lead such legacies will of course be uptold by whoever comes after him. And that's why I believe in the first place, refugees should be kept at home. Dr, you're talking about tightening and even more sanctions to put pressure on the coup plotters. But look at the reaction from the coup plotters now. They've currently closed all borders with Ekoa's member states and neighboring countries. They don't seem to be bothered by these sanctions. It doesn't seem like any of it is going to move any of them. And so very likely it's the citizens, it's the malians that will suffer. So how long are we going to play these games? If Ekoa is placing sanctions, Mali on the other hand is reacting to the sanctions or the coup plotters are reacting to sanctions and shutting their borders with these countries. How much longer will this last and what will eventually at least make a difference? Thank you very much for this angle. This tells you that the sanctions are coming late. If the sanctions are coming much, much earlier, they will have no part to the road that they are taking. It doesn't lead them anywhere. Yes, they could do this as a way to show that they could do a tit for tat. You can do a tit for tat with the suppression. Once you're closed all around, you will go nowhere. That's why once the Ekoa's people are united in their mindset about Mali and Mali is totally coddled off, it's only a matter of time before people inside will tell the soldiers, you cannot win this way, you have to open up to the suppression, you have to open up to Ekoa. Don't forget, no man is an island, nobody can live alone. So what you're not seeing them do, it's nothing. We should not stop. We should put more sanctions and we should get international community to understand what we're doing. These soldiers are not agreeing to an implementation of the special agreement. And if they are to sustain and succeed in that, that would be a very big problem for the suppression because wherever else Mali affects the suppression, whatever affects Mali affects the rest of us. We should have done this earlier than now. We should not in any way step down, put more sanctions, they will come to the table. Okay, Dr. Khachron, let's talk about the trickle down effect now. You have mentioned that first of all, Nigeria is bearing the brunt already. Will there be a trickle down effect to other countries in the West African region? I'm talking about what is currently going on right now in Mali and the effect it will have. So what are these effects that other countries in this region are expected to experience? Well, as you can see from the Nigerian experience, the Bororiflanese that came in from Mali are unknown to Arshaws. They brought their guns there and that was why Governor Ganduja was saying, let them in but don't let them in with their guns. Those guns they were bringing from the war fronts in Mali and they were bringing them into Nigeria. So you are complaining about Nigeria. They most also have affected other countries that are much smaller than Nigeria is. You let them carry the guns into the bushes before you know it, then the gun becomes an aphrodisiac that now prompts them to do anything. Today, I was surprised. I was speaking to Kadila last week and I said, these cars, I like them. What are the colors? He said, oh God, are you asking about colors? I said, what do you mean? Are you in Mali and I said, what do you mean? He says, only Malians that would talk about colors would they buy cars because why they would buy several colors of the same car. He's telling you that when these Malian kidnappers get money from kidnapping in Nigeria, as I'm sure they also do in other countries, they will buy cars, buy several colors, take them to Bamako. Once the money come back, they will come back to Nigeria and stop their crisis. And that's why you see someone like Governor Erufai got very angry because no matter what you agree with those Malians, once the money they have is finished, they will go back again to the crimes. That's why you saw the way they were attacking people in Nigeria. They don't know who is who. They don't know the difference between the Hausa and the Fula. They just attacked anybody that they saw. For the first time in our lifetime, we saw Fula killing Hausa in Basari, in Sabana, in Kankara, in Emusa, in places like Maru, in Angkor, in Tangobe, in Densado, look at Benoist states. They have several IDPs, same thing with Platte, as the last time I was told, it has increased from 77 to 125 villages in Platte state. Now under IDP camp, while foreign refugees occupy their villages. Now this is going to be a problem for whoever is going to come after President Buahari because indigenous people come and complain, give us some of our land, accept us back in our lands. You cannot have Galibashay who tell them they don't have permission before going back to their lands. They will find a way to go back to their lands. And that becomes a problem for the refugees that President Buahari has tried to water in Nigeria. So this is this problem, I'm talking about Nigeria. What about the trickle down effect in other nations that also have different ways of trying to react to these kind of security challenges? It is a problem, it's a wistachrican problem, and should be collected and dealt by all leaders in West Africa because whatever it will affect the rest of the force. As I said earlier, it's like a dam, when the dam bursts, the overflow from that dam bursting will affect everybody within the vicinity of the dam. So whenever the dam, a manly burst, it affected everybody in West Africa's operation. And that's, I believe, we must take very very seriously and put more sanctions on them. Sanctions do work, but they take time to work. That's why I say, you shouldn't have said it now, you should have said it way before, day before yesterday, right when the soldiers came in. Give them sanctions because we understand why they came in. They came in to stop the implementation of peacekeeping. Okay, Dr. Ono Nuju, I'm not sure if we still have you. All right, we may have lost him briefly there, but of course we will reconnect with Dr. Katch Ono Nuju, who's of course the Director General at the Heritage Center. Okay, welcome back. Dr. Ono Nuju, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you very clearly. Okay, welcome back. Sorry, we had lost you briefly there. You keep talking about the 2015 peace agreement. Can we get some clarity on what exactly that is? It's as quickly as possible before I ask the next question. Well, the peace agreement, because there was this war that was much, much earlier than 2015. But in 2015, there was a peace agreement agreed to resettle both the Fulanese who were escaping from the Central Mali, where they were fighting with the dogmas to come back to where they used to live as their homes. But when there was some door, President Buhari came in and instead of him pursuing that peace agreement vigorously, he now thought he could resettle those Mali and refugees in Nigeria. That was why he started applying for glazing reserves. They weren't anything to do with agriculture. He wanted to resettle those refugees. Nigeria refused. They asked for car quality. They refused. He talked about consolidation from the ground and surface water plus 50 kilometers of land impacting those waters. Nigeria refused. He now tried to talk about glazing reserves. Nigeria refused. Then the Fulani militia meant sudden killing as a way to ethnically cleanse indigenous people off land to take that land. And that was why the resettlement occurred. And as I'm talking to you right now, we have IDP camps all over the note. Even though we're not at war, it has a consequence of corruption. This is a completely shocking analysis with regards to the banditry as it has been called in Nigeria and insurgency that we've been dealing with. A lot of people wouldn't understand it from this angle. But from what you're saying... That is the root of it. That is the root of it. Don't ever... Nothing about the banditry has to do with agriculture. It's all about land. When we didn't give land to the president, as he sought them, that was why the militia men started looking for land violently. And that's why, as I'm talking to you, we have IDP camps all over the note. Even though we're not at war, that's why that problem occurred. Okay. So Papa, do you think that the leaders of this region have actually done enough and echo as a governing body has done enough in addressing and ensuring that we do not have a repeat of coup d'etat and unconstitutional seizure of power in Africa? No, they've not done enough because they kept moot at the time of the coup. I advise privately that the sanctions should come in. Don't give them chance. It's when you relax that other coup plotters will also think they can do a counter coup. Show them that coups are not allowed in a democratic setting. But apart from Dr. Katch, apart from having these sanctions, are there other means that these leaders would have intervened without having to... I mean, we're getting... Because we've gotten to the point where we have to use sanctions now. So prior to this time, should there be another approach that would have been applied to quell down all of this? Yes, yes. We have previously, we have before in Africa, used the military of other West African states, most especially Nigeria, to intervene in countries like that to bring peace. Because that would have been the best thing to do. Because those doing that coup right now are argumentators and protagonists in that war. Bring back refugees to return to back on the... And then that put pressure on countries in the sub-regions like Nigeria. You can see how we Nigerians suffer. So it's not as if this thing, it's a rocket science. No, if you don't do that, what you should do, as at the time when you should do it, you will suffer the consequences as we have suffered right now. We didn't do it well. We also weren't sincere, pretending as if we had an agricultural problem we wanted to solve in Nigeria, whereas it was a refugee crisis. And today what we have, we displaced Nigerians internally and you have foreigners in their villages. Of course, it's not going to work because we're not at war. So at last, the army has been to be allowed to deal with these people because these people are terrorists. They're terrorizing Nigerians, killing Nigerians everywhere. And we should never have tolerated that as President Buhari was willing to tolerate it. Well, a final question from me, because the angle that you've brought in now is a whole interview's worth. You know, it cannot be talked about, you know, just briefly. Because I know there's people who would argue that most of the people who are committing these crimes in Northern Nigeria are Nigerians and not from outside, they're not Malians or anything. But that's, it's all different. Hold on, hold on. You don't know this. I will teach you a place. I have been on this issue. For this problem, I've been to Mali. For this crisis, I've been to Gambia. For this crisis, I've been to Saga. So I know this issue. I was dealing with this issue other President Gulagianata. When President Buhari came in, this agreement was reached, where I advised him, if do this, get other leaders to implement it. No, he thought he could resettle the refugees here. Me and you now know why it's been since looking for land, looking for land, looking for land, and you couldn't get it. Niger is about to leave office. What would be the fate of those refugees if the indigenous people who have lost their central land are today in IDP camp? What that tells you is that the West African leaders will have to find a way to resolve this problem. Well, let's talk about... Dr. Anandudu, I want us to close with talking about the international community. Mali is Africa's third largest producer of gold. There's obviously going to be some, maybe, not obviously, some influence from the French-speaking community, from Germany and the likes. Do you think that they would have any influence here? Yes, the French have been here. The French were actually the first to move in with the peacekeeping operation. I met the French there when I went to Mali, and I went to myself, to Empotsi, central Mali, where this issue was occurring. I came back to Nigeria, and I shared my experiences with Nigerians on channels television. So I believe that the input of French, the French are very, very important because as you registered, there are minerals there, and there are international organizations and companies that are there mining these minerals. And of course, they wouldn't be involved in such an economically lucrative activity but that's of support for their home government. So whatever you do in that space, those people will care how you pray, and the home government will also be there to caution you so that you know two things that undermine the economic activity that their home companies are engaging in Mali. So Mali cannot be resolved by one person. It can be done by Nigeria alone. So when you saw Nigeria try to travel, travel, travel with good luck and try to bring some kind of influence, the coup happened. We need the contribution of everybody in the sub-region to solve it because Mali and crisis is an aqueous crisis. No one single person should try to do it alone. It is that serious. You can see how it has affected us in Nigeria from my explanation. So it also would have affected all the countries in the sub-region from what you've seen just in Nigeria. Please, we should come together to resolve Mali and crisis. All right, Dr. Kachan on the view. Thank you so much for this conversation. I truly enjoyed it. And of course, thanks for the different angles that you've also thrown into the discussion. We wish you a great day ahead and looking forward to speaking with you again as always. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And away from Mali, we're back here in Lagos and this is where we will be saying goodbye this morning. But of course, if you want to follow up or catch up on any of those conversations, please simple on our social media platforms. On Facebook or at PlusCVAfrica and Instagram, do subscribe to our YouTube channels PlusCVAfrica live star. And I am messable for to have a great day ahead. And I am Musaugi of Bona.