Despite Gambian headache, Ghana makes ECOWAS proud – Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian president and Chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says Ghana has made the regional bloc and the entire continent proud with the peaceful transition of power.

Sirleaf was speaking on Saturday at the investiture of Ghana’s new president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in Accra, capital of Ghana. Sirleaf was quick to add that fellow West Africa country, Gambia, remains a headache to ECOWAS.

Whiles reiterating that the political bloc stood with the people of the Gambia, they continue to monitor the situation in the country. Gambian president Yahya Jammeh has refused to handover power after losing the elections held in early December.

Gambia: US asks citizens to leave amid political uncertainty https://t.co/3PZmt8JoR6

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ECOWAS she said, was the leading democratic region in Africa after managing political transitions in among other places, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Benin, and now Ghana. She said they are working to entrench that feat.

She mentioned how the region has its own court, parliament and passport as part of its cooperation efforts. Total integration she added was the urgent need to improve movement of persons by road adding that the group must move from the ‘‘ECOWAS of states to the ECOWAS of people.’‘

ECOWAS she noted was worried over issues of terrorism in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Jammeh’s party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) on December 13 filed an election petition in the Supreme Court. The first hearing of the case is scheduled for January 10, 2017; nine days to the investiture of Adama Barrow – the president-elect.

The Army has pledged allegiance to Jammeh in the midst of the impasse. The opposition coalition insist that they are going ahead with plans for Barrow’s inauguration.