Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has asked Nigeria’s President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and other African leaders to sanction Russia.
SERAP also asked the African leaders to call for the protection of Nigerians and other Africans in Ukraine.
The organisation made the request in a tweet on Saturday.
“We urge President Buhari to provide the leadership by immediately calling for extra-ordinary sessions of the African Union and ECOWAS to discuss sanctions against Russia over the invasion of #Ukraine, and to call for protection of Africans caught up in the conflict,” the tweet read.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked widespread reaction worldwide.
However, the Russian Ambassador to Nigeria, Alexei Shebarshin, had assured the Federal Government that Nigerians won’t be harmed during the raging conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, who met with the envoy behind closed doors, quoted Shebarshin as saying that Nigeria is a friendly nation to Russia.
Onyeama had said, “He (Shebarshin) said they (Russia) consider Nigeria a friendly country.
“The Russian envoy also said that they would do nothing to harm Nigerians and assured me that their action is targeted at military installations and that they are not about to start attacking civilian areas and so forth.”
On Saturday, Moscow further ordered its troops to advance in Ukraine “from all directions” as the Ukrainian capital Kyiv imposed a blanket curfew after fighting in the city that saw Russian troops pushed back.
Ukrainian officials reported 198 civilian deaths in total, including three children, as explosions reverberated in Kyiv, forcing residents to flee to safety underground.
Moscow said it fired cruise missiles at military targets and would “develop the offensive from all directions” after accusing Ukraine of having “rejected” talks.
But, on day three of Russia’s invasion, defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed his country would never give in to the Kremlin, while Washington said the invading force had a “lack of momentum”.
Ukraine’s army said it held back an assault on the capital – but was fighting Russian “sabotage groups” which had infiltrated the city.
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