ECOWAS is determined to restore constitutional rule in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said.
The President indicated that the regional body would continue to admonish the countries to do better with the security and humanitarian challenges they were facing.
He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the sixth Extraordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government on the situation in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso at the Jubilee House in Accra last Saturday.
The ECOWAS Chair added that these measures form part of the resolute commitment of ECOWAS to uphold democratic governance and institutions in the region, as enshrined in its protocol on good governance.
“We’ve had several meetings on the unfortunate situations in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso. During our last summit, we were briefed on the social, political and security situations in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso, which informed the decisions we took,” he added.
President Akufo-Addo went on to state that ECOWAS will continue meeting to discuss issues on the political instability in the region with the resurgence of coups d’etat since August 2020, with the hope of finding some lasting solutions to them.
He was hopeful the meeting would be successful and lead to agreements that would consolidate the joint efforts for the establishment of a peaceful, democratic and stable West Africa.
Present at the meeting were the Presidents of Benin, Patrice Talon; Cote d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara; The Gambia, Adama Barrow, Guinea Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo; Liberia, George Weah; Niger, Mohamed Bazoum; Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari; Senegal, Macky Sall, and Togo, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe.
At the end of the meeting, the Heads of State and Government appended their signatures to a communique which considered the reports presented by the ECOWAS Mediator on Mali, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on the situation in Mali.
It also considered the reports of the ECOWAS Assessment Mission to Burkina Faso and on the situation in Guinea, presented by Ghana’s Minister of National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah, who represented the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, who chairs the ECOWAS Council of Ministers.
ECOWAS after the meeting asked the Mediator to Mali, to continue his efforts and finalise the discussions with the transitional authority accordingly.
The ECOWAS Authority decided to uphold the sanctions imposed on January 9, this year.
It further asked for continued dialogue which is expected to ensure that an agreement is reached towards a gradual lifting of the sanctions as benchmarks of the transition were met.
On Guinea, ECOWAS expressed concern over the deteriorating socio-political situation due to the lack of an appropriate dialogue framework between the government and the political stakeholders and civil society actors.
According to ECOWAS, it was worried about the length of the 36-month transition period announced by the transitional authority.
It demanded the finalisation of an acceptable transition timetable.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
