Gambia: ECOWAS leaders meet in Abuja

ECOWAS leaders will continue their mediation in the political impasse in Gambia at the weekend in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

ECOWAS-AU-UN team that visited Gambia

President Ellen  Johnson-Sirleaf,  chairperson of the sub-regional grouping said discussions on The Gambian impasse would continue this Saturday.

The Joint ECOWAS-AU-UN team, made of President Buhari, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia (current Chairperson of ECOWAS), President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, outgoing President John Mahama of Ghana, and Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, (UN Special Representative for West Africa),   met with President Yahya Jammeh and president-elect, Adama Barrow in Banjul on Tuesday.

The leaders encouraged Jammeh to reconsider his rejection of the election results, based on what he called citing “tallying errors” and his call for new elections.

The high-level team, in series of meetings that lasted the whole of Tuesday, met with Jammeh twice, conferred with Barrow, consulted with security chiefs, members of the diplomatic community, leadership of the electoral commission, and many other interest groups.

The consensus was that President Jammeh needed to respect the result of the December 1 election, which he had earlier accepted, congratulated the winner, only to recant a week later, calling for fresh polls “to be conducted by a God-fearing electoral commission.”

Jammeh was also urged to hand over power “within constitutional deadlines, and in accordance with electoral laws of The Gambia.”

 

 Meanwhile, the coalition of seven political parties that produced Adama Barrow, looks earnestly up to  President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria to deploy his vast experience, alongside other African leaders, to resolve the political logjam in the tiny West African country.

Speaking with the media during the high-level ECOWAS /AU/UN Joint Mission to The Gambia on Tuesday, Hamad Bah, one of the coalition members, declared:

 “We need the experience of President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria in many ways. Like President Jammeh, he is a former military officer, so he knows how the military thinks, and would be able to talk to him appropriately.

“Again, President Buhari was in the opposition in Nigeria for about 12 years, before he won election in 2015. So, he also knows how the opposition thinks. He can feel what we feel. We are quite glad that President Buhari is here, it gives us a lot of hope.” (NAN)