Nana Akufo-Addo, the current President of ECOWAS, welcomed the progress of the transition process in Mali where he completed a twenty-four hour official visit.
Mali can count on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In short, this is the main message carried by Nana Akufo-Addo. As soon as he got off the plane, the current president of the regional organisation said that “Mali is a very important member. We are a community and we work together.”
ECOWAS wanted through this visit started on Sunday to warm up relations with Bamako. Indeed, it had vigorously condemned the August 18 coup against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) before taking a series of sanctions harshly felt by the whole of Mali.
In order to get the country off its feet, the National Council for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), created by the military putschists, has resigned to applying the strong ECOWAS recommendations. These mainly concerned the appointment of civilians as President and Prime Minister of the transition, the impossibility for these two leaders to be candidates for the next presidential election, and the ban on the Vice-President of the transition from replacing the President.
And when all these requirements were met, ECOWAS lifted all sanctions on October 5 on this country, which healthy economy largely depends on the opening of the borders of the community area.
This is why, in Bamako, the Ghanaian Head of State “came to reaffirm the support of ECOWAS.” To take the temperature, Nana Akufo-Addo held talks with the President of the transition Bah N’daw, Vice President Colonel Assimi Goïta and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane.
At the end of the political transition supposed to last 18 months, the regional organisation hopes that “there will be a democratically elected president. In the meantime, the President of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS called on “bilateral and multilateral partners to support Mali in this important phase of its history.”
ID/cgd/lb/abj/APA