President Muhammadu Buhari, for the first time since coronavirus arrived, will fly out of the country tomorrow, July 23, heading to Bamako, Republic of Mali on a one-day visit.
His trip is backgrounded on the briefing by the ECOWAS Special Envoy to the country, former President Goodluck Jonathan.
A statement today, July 22, by the special adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina said that President Buhari and some ECOWAS leaders, led by the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the sub-regional organisation, President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger Republic, had agreed to meet in Mali to engage in further consultations towards finding a political solution to the crisis in the country.
The statement said that the host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire are expected to participate in the Bamako meeting.
It recalled that former President Jonathan was at the State House in company of President of ECOWAS Commission,Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, on Tuesday to brief President Buhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties.
“We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward,” the statement quoted President Buhari as saying.
He thanked Dr Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, “which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.”
The former President had filled in President Buhari on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity to Mali, rocked by protests against President Keita, who has spent two out of the five years second term in office.
A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved, and the President resign, before peace can return to the country.
Crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.
Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.
