ECOWAS’ stand against coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea still subsists — Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said ECOWAS Heads of State has reiterated the firm position that there is absolutely no excuse for a change of government by coup d’etat.

He said this on Thursday after attending the ECOWAS Extraordinary Summit that held in Accra and the topic of discussion bordered on the political situations in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea.

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The vice president said as far as ECOWAS is concerned, the one way of changing government in the region, acceptable to all of the protocols and the political rights of the people is by a democratically elected government.

Prof. Osinbajo who represented President Muhammadu Buhari at the Summit fielded questions from reporters on the outcome of the summit.

He said, “I think it has been fruitful, the Heads of State again reiterated the firm position that had been taken earlier that there is absolutely no excuse for a change of government by coup d’etat.

“So, what happened in Burkina Faso was considered and has been condemned by all of the heads of state and we do not think there is any excuse for it whatsoever.

“But at the moment, of course, engagement is going on with the military junta and also we condemned the attempted coup in Guinea-Bissau and congratulated President Embalo and the people of Guinea-Bissau for resisting that unconstitutional attempt to change the government. All in all, it has been fruitful and we are very hopeful that lessons had been learnt and we will not see a repeat of this.”

When asked about Mali, he responded: “We are expecting that the Malian authorities would respond to ECOWAS imposed sanctions as you know and we expect that at some point, the Malian authorities themselves would begin to speed up the process of transition. We expect that they would do so. We are looking forward to that engagement.”

His spokesman Laolu Akande in a statement said the vice president returned to Abuja on Thursday evening from Accra.