West African leaders in Gambia to urge peaceful transition

Ghana’s President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo says he’ll set up a special team to investigate corruption but promises it will not be a witch-hunt.

Both the Gambia’s opposition coalition and president-elect Barrow have urged Jammeh to step down and accept the election result.

Members of Gambia’s ruling party asked the supreme court Tuesday to void December 1 election results, following their leader’s loss. Jammeh alleges voting irregularities.

And while Jammeh was invited to the White House in 2014 for the U.S. -Africa Leaders Summit, he was mocked across much of Africa as irrational for his quixotic, unfounded claims (including that he could cure AIDS with local herbs).

Sirleaf said over the weekend that the reversal of Jammeh’s decision “threatened peace”.

Jammeh rejected the result, and called for a fresh election to be presided by over by a God-fearing electoral commission.

West African leaders are to head to Gambia to try to persuade incumbent President Yahya Jammeh to agree “to leave office” after his defeat at the ballot box, according to a Senegalese foreign ministry source.

Vanguard had reported that the President would take a trip to the country. The outcome of that exercise has since elicited positive comments and commendation across the world, including the United Nations, the African Union, United States of America, among others.

Gambia’s Communications Minister Sheriff Bojang was not reachable for comment on Monday.

“He asks that the global community ensure his security because he feels threatened”, said the source, who asked not to be named.

“We are not talking about a military option”.

“I have no official security”.

Ana sa ran shugaban kasa Buhari zai dawo Abuja a yau.

“If Jammeh remains intransigent after talks with the ECOWAS leaders, then this country [the Gambia] may inch closer to bloodshed that would do nobody, least of all President Jammeh, any good”, said the politician.

Mr. Ki-moon’s condemnation of Mr Jammeh came after those of the United States, and right organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Jammeh in mid-2015 dismissed a string of Supreme Court judges after criticising the court’s move to commute several death sentences.

The lawyers alleged that Fagbenle was at the forefront of plan to undermine the will of Gambians, stating that he was quite close to Jammeh who had ruled Gambia for 22 years. The current chief justice is from Nigeria.

The legal body has lain dormant since May 2015 as Jammeh himself sacked many of its judges.

Diplomats in the region say that if Jammeh seeks to cling to power after negotiations fail, neighbours might consider options for removing him by force.

“It is unacceptable that there is an election and one person turns down the result”, Liberia’s information minister Eugene Nagbe told AFP on Tuesday.