Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament Dr. Sidie Mohammed Tunis, is encouraging African leaders to allow citizens to freely choose their leaders at all levels of government to put an end to the rising number of coups in the West African sub-region.
According to Dr. Sidie, the habit of imposing leaders on the public and political manipulation at many levels leaves many people dissatisfied and jolts them into coups.
The speaker of the ECOWAS parliament, speaking at the 5th ECOWAS high-level Parliament conference in Winneba, questioned stakeholders’ commitment to these protocols and regulations, citing recent developments in the region.
He stated that they are currently following the situation in Mali and will continue to urge all political parties to adhere to the different agreed-upon roadmaps for the restoration of democratic governance.
Mali’s constitutional court on May 29, 2021 named Colonel Assimi Goïta as its transitional president on.
This came after Mali’s second coup in nine months.
Speaking after his elevation Goïta said “We had to choose between the stability of Mali and the chaos. We have chosen stability. In choosing between disorder and cohesion in the defence forces and security, we have chosen cohesion in the defence forces and security because it is in the nation’s best interests“.
Colonel Assimi Goïta will be at the post until elections are held and the country returns to democracy.
West African leaders decided at an extraordinary summit following the insurrection, to suspend Mali from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bodies after a second coup in nine months by the poor Sahel country’s military, but stopped short of re-imposing sanctions.
Ten regional heads of state and three foreign ministers attended the summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra, with former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan serving as mediator in the crisis.
“The suspension from ECOWAS takes immediate effect until the deadline of the end of February 2022 when they are supposed to hand over to a democratically elected government,” Ghana’s Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said after the meeting.
