Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has joined other West African leaders for an emergency summit following the spate of coups in the subregion. Osinbajo left with Nigeria’s delegate early Thursday for Accra, Ghana for the Extraordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government deliberating. Emergency talks...
ECOWAS
Guinea-Bissau’s capital appeared calm on Wednesday a day after President Umaro Sissoco Embalo survived a gun attack, as France joined condemnation for what has been called an attempted coup in one of Africa’s most unstable countries. Heavily armed men on Tuesday afternoon surrounded government buildings in the capital Bissau...
Sustained gunfire was heard on Tuesday near the seat of government in the coup-prone West African state of Guinea-Bissau, AFP reporters said, as a regional bloc condemned what it called an “attempted coup”. Heavily-armed men surrounded the Palace of Government, where President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno...
Separatist rebels have killed four Senegalese soldiers and are holding seven hostage after a clash on the border between Senegal and The Gambia last week, the Senegalese army said in a statement. Three soldiers died in the fighting on January 24 between the Senegalese army and rebels from the...
Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold an extraordinary summit on Burkina Faso and Mali on Friday, Ivory Coast’s information minister said, after military takeovers in both countries. Army officers in Burkina Faso ousted President Roch Kabore on Monday in West Africa’s third coup...
Extreme poverty in West Africa rose by nearly three per cent in 2020, another fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, a UN-backed report launched on Thursday that looks at the socio-impact of the crisis has revealed. The proportion of people living on less than 1.90 dollars a day jumped from...
A bus station in Mali’s capital stands unusually quiet, with foreign passengers left in limbo after West African countries closed their borders with the military-ruled nation. Africa Tours Trans is one of the main bus firms in the impoverished Sahel state, offering connections to its regional cities as well...
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will depart Abuja on Sunday for Accra, Ghana, to represent President Muhammadu Buhari at an Extraordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government. Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, said the extraordinary meeting was to discuss...
President Muhammadu Buhari has received a Special Envoy from Col. Assimi Goita, the Transitional President of Mali. Mr Femi Adesina, the president’s spokesman in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, said President Buhari promised that Nigeria would do her level best for the sister country, within the requirements of...
A truth and reconciliation commission in The Gambia on Friday recommended that ex-leader Yahya Jammeh be brought before an international tribunal for crimes allegedly committed during his 22-year dictatorship. The commission recommended “prosecuting Yahya Jammeh and his co-perpetrators in an international tribunal” in West Africa outside of The Gambia,...
By JOHN ONAH, Abuja – The undemocratic takeover of government in some West African countries has created a great challenge for Electoral Commissions in the sub-region, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu. Speaking on Wednesday during plenary of the ECOWAS Network of Electoral...
The President of the community court of Justice, ECOWAS, Edward Amoako Asante, has called for an upward review of the number of justices for the court, to enable it meet up its responsibilities. Giving an account of how the court had fared in the last 20 years, at a...
The President of the Community Court of Justice, ECOWAS, Justice Edward Amoako Asante, has described the court as a pace setter for other regional courts, particularly those in Africa. Asante spoke prior to the opening of an International Conference, organized by the Court in Lome, Togo, and dedicated to...
With presidential election results from all but one of Nigeria’s 36 states counted, and the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari, clearly in unassailable lead, President Jonathan had telephoned Mr. Buhari to concede defeat. At the time the call was made, the Independent National Electoral Commission was...
PATRICK ABANG, Calabar – In a collaborative efforts aimed at preventing further proliferation of illicit trafficking and flow of Small Arms and Light Weapon (SALW) in the African Continent, the European Union (EU) and The Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) in partnership with the Leadership Initiative for...
The Assembly of Health Ministers of the ECOWAS region on Friday announced that Nigeria and other African countries would get access to the newly developed malaria vaccine by the first quarter of 2022. The Health Minister of Ghana, who is also the chairman of the assembly, Dr Kweku Agyeman-Manu,...
By DAVID IORJA, Abuja – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has resolved to maintain the sanctions it imposed on Guinea, while imposing similar ones against the Transitional Government in Mali. The resolution was part of the outcomes of the ECOWAS Extraordinary summit of the Authority of...
The West African regional grouping ECOWAS on Sunday hardened its stance against military-ruled Mali and Guinea, imposing new individual sanctions and calling on both countries to honour timetables for a return to democracy. The Economic Community of West African States “has decided to sanction all those implicated in the...
Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan will depart Abuja, on Saturday, for Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, to attend the 12th African Union (AU) High-Level Retreat on the promotion of peace, security and stability in Africa. The Special Adviser to Jonathan on Media, Mr Ikechukwu Eze, disclosed this in a statement...