Ghanaian journalist and co-host of Happy 98.9FM’s Happy Morning Show, Raymond Nyamador, has questioned the calibre of some leaders involved in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting on Mali’s political crisis yesterday.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo called on leaders of ECOWAS to deliberate on the way forward following the forceful resignation of Mali’s president and the takeover of the country’s governance by military junta.
The outcome of the meeting was that the ruling military junta was warned to ensure a civil transition in a matter of days.
Speaking on the meeting, however, Raymond Nyamador, positioned that certain political leaders in the meetings lacked the moral right to call on the military in Mali to quickly hand over power to a civilian government.
He shared on the Happy Morning Show, “Even at that table yesterday, there were leaders there who did not even have the moral right to tell the General Colonel Goita to go and restore Mali to constitutional rule. Because they themselves have circumvented constitutional rule to still stay in power.
Faure Gnassingbe was there. Alpha Conde was there. Our good friend Ouattara was also sitting there. These three men’s inclusion defeats the purpose of that meeting”.
According to him, the presence of these leaders will have an effect on the mind of the Colonel who has taken charge of Mali’s affair with his military.
“The young colonel will be sitting at that table looking in their faces and say that these people are civilian rulers but they have even behaved in worst ways than we military rulers will behave. In his mind, he will say, ‘why should I take moral lessons of constitutionality from these people?’. So you tell him to go back to Mali to return power to civilian government as if he hasn’t seen how civilian government operates”.
The meeting had in attendance President Akufo-Addo, President of Togo Faure Gnassingbe, Macky Sall of Senegal, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré of Burkina Faso,
Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of Nigeria,Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, Alpha Conde, President of Guinea, and Alhassan Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire, all representing ECOWAS.
The rest were the leader of the National Committee of the Salvation of the People, Col Assimi Goita, of the military junta in Mali.
Some of these ECOWAS leaders have had their government marred however, by some political crisis.
President Faure Gnassingbé
Faure Gnassingbé Eyadéma is a Togolese politician who has been the President of Togo since 2005. Before assuming the presidency, he was appointed by his father, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, as Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts, and Telecommunications, serving from 2003 to 2005
In August 2017, however, hundreds of thousands of protesters around the country sought the reinstatement of presidential term limits that would prevent longstanding President Faure Gnassingbé from seeking another term in office.
Alpha Conde
Alpha Condé is a Guinean politician who has been President of Guinea since December 2010.
Guinean President Alpha Conde announced plans in December last year to replace the country’s constitution via a referendum, a move that critics say will allow him to stay in power beyond the current two-term limit. Guinea’s existing constitution requires the 81-year-old Conde, who was first elected in 2010, to step down after finishing his second and final term later this year. But the proposed draft document many people believe that it would likely allow him to run for reelection.
A recent report from dw. com states that Incumbent Alpha Conde is set to run for a third term in Guinea despite legal questions arising from the move.
Alassane Ouattara
President Alassane Ouattara was elected president of Côte d’Ivoire in 2010.
Despite Ouattara’s victory, the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to step down, and the two established parallel administrations that both claimed legitimacy—until Gbagbo’s arrest in April 2011 effectively removed him from power.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara,however, recently made known that he would seek re-election in October 2020, formally accepting the ruling party’s nomination to be its candidate and defying opponents who say the constitution forbids a third term.
His opponents say the two-term limit in the constitution bars him from running again, but Ouattara has said his first two mandates do not count under the new constitution adopted in 2016.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
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