Osinbajo attends follow-up meeting

The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, will join a select group of West African leaders at a meeting in Ouagadougou to address the political situation in Burkina Faso on Wednesday, a statement said.

Osinbajo is representing President Muhammadu Buhari at the meeting, which was decided at the Extra-ordinary session of ECOWAS leaders in Abuja on Tuesday, the statement said.

The statement, issued by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Vice President, Mr Laolu Akande, said Osinbajo would be among six ECOWAS leaders to participate in the event.

It said the special ECOWAS delegation would be meeting with the leaders of the military coup in Burkina Faso.

The meeting is to facilitate the return of the sacked interim government in the West African nation with the intention of holding due democratic elections in the country, the statement said.

The ECOWAS Heads of State and Government had on Tuesday approved a six-member delegation to Burkina Faso to monitor the restoration of all interim political structures in the country.

The President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Desire Ouedraogo, at the end of the extraordinary meeting at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, named Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Togo, Senegal and Benin as members of the delegation.

He said the delegation was saddled with the responsibility of ensuring the reinstallation of all members of the transitional government, including Mr Misha Karfando, as President of the interim government in Burkina Faso.

Ouedraogo said the meeting also assigned the Chairman of ECOWAS, President Macky Sall of Senegal, and his Nigerian counterpart, Buhari, to initiate a political dialogue among all stakeholders.

He said the step was aimed at finding concessional solutions to the proposed Peace Accord presented to the Commission by Sall and President Boni Yayi of Benin Republic, who were on a peace mission to Bukina Faso on Friday.

As part of the peace moves, the ECOWAS leaders called on the presidential guards to disarm and demanded the other unit of the army not to use force to avoid the loss of lives.

They also called on all the stakeholders to exercise patience and refrain from anything that could derail the national consensus.

The statement said Osinbajo would return to the country later in the day.