Former President Goodluck Jonathan will brief the ECOWAS extraordinary summit of heads of states tomorrow Wednesday 8 September in convergence to discuss the political situation in Mali and Guinea.
The two countries have been rocked by military coups in recent times. Guinea experienced a change of power last weekend while neighbouring Mali has had two military interventions, with the most recent in May 2021.
The summit was summoned by the President of the ECOWAS CommissionJean-Claude Kassi Brou who initially scheduled it for 9 September following the military take over in Guinea over the weekend in which some soldiers took the Guinean President Alpha Condé captive.
The meeting will hold via videoconferencing and Goodluck Jonathan will update the summit on his last Sunday’s visit to Mali in company with Ghana’s foreign affairs minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, who is the chair of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers.
The summit will dissolve into a closed-door session after the opening address by Ghana President and chairman, ECOWAS Nana Akuffo-Addo. It is during the closed-door session that Jonathan will brief on Mali while the president of the Ecowas Commission will brief the participants on the situation in Guinea.
Guinea was over the weekend rocked by reports of an attempted coup by the military and which has made unclear, the fate of Guinea’s President Alpha Condé after an unverified video showed him surrounded by soldiers, who said they had seized power.
The TV address featured nine unnamed soldiers, several draped in the red, gold and green national flag, who said they had taken over because of rampant corruption, mismanagement and poverty.
The soldiers who called themselves the National Committee for Reconciliation and Development and which numerous reports said was led by an elite unit headed by a former French legionnaire, Lt Col Mamady Doumbouya, said the constitution had been dissolved and that there would be consultations to create a new, more inclusive one.
The soldiers who appeared on national TV claimed to have dissolved the government after heavy gunfire was reported near the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry.
However, a counter-claim from the defence ministry said the attempted takeover had been thwarted by the presidential guard.
The action of the soldiers had drawn condemnation from the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and the African Union who demanded the immediate release of President Condé.
Also, the Nigerian government has condemned the military coup against Conde who won a third term last October after changing the constitution to allow him to stand again, despite violent protests from the opposition.
Reacting to the development, the Nigerian Government in a statement by the ministry of foreign affairs said it was saddened by the coup.
It called on those behind the unconstitutional change of government to restore constitutional order without delay and protect lives and property.
“The Nigerian government is saddened by the apparent coup d’etat in the Republic of Guinea, in clear violation of the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance,” the statement reads
The West African country of Guinea is rich in natural resources but years of unrest and mismanagement mean it is one of the world’s poorest countries.
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