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.
the statement said, Osinbajo is representing President
Muhammadu Buhari at the meeting, which was decided at the Extra- ordinary
session of ECOWAS leaders in Abuja.
The statement, issued by the Senior Special Assistant on
Media and Publicity to the Vice President, 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 ECOWAS leaders also requested African Union and the
international community to lift the sanctions imposed on Burkina Faso in the
view of the fact the interim government would be reinstated by Sept. 23.
The statement said Osinbajo would return to the country
later in the day.
END
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