West African leaders to meet Guinea junta

West African leaders to meet Guinea junta

(1st row from L to R): Togo President Faure Gnassingbé, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and Togo President Faure Gnassingbé, (2nd row from 2nd L to R): Liberia President George Weah, Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio, Guinea Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, Niger President Mohamed Bazoum, Gambia President Adama Barrow (3rd row L) and Nigeria Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (3rd row R) pose for a family photograph in Accra, Ghana on September 16, 2021, during the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Extraordinary meeting on the political situation in Guinea. (Photo by Nipah Dennis / AFP)

A delegation of West African leaders is expected to meet Guinea’s junta Friday, a day after regional bloc ECOWAS urged rapid elections following a coup in the fragile country.

Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara stated Friday that he was en route to Guinea’s capital Conakry as part of a “high-level” diplomatic mission led by Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo.

An ECOWAS official, who requested anonymity, told AFP that ECOWAS Commission President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou would likely take part too.

The trip comes after an ECOWAS summit on Thursday which ramped up pressure on Guinea’s putschists, who ousted president Alpha Conde on September 5.

Leaders from the West Africa bloc called for the junta to hold elections within six months. They also imposed a travel ban on junta members and froze their financial assets.

Guinea’s putsch has fuelled international concerns over democratic backsliding across west Africa and drawn parallels with Mali, which suffered two coups since August last year.

Coup leader Lieutenant-Colonel Mamady Doumbouya has not yet responded to the call for elections from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

This week, he held meetings over several days with political and civil-society figures, in talks intended to pave a return to civilian rule.

But Doumbouya, a former French Legionnaire, has so far refused to commit to a timetable.

“The only timetable that counts is that of the Guinean people who have suffered so much,” he told political leaders in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday.

Guinea is a poor nation of 13 million people, which has suffered three coups since independence from France in 1958.

The country has some of the world’s largest reserves of bauxite — the ore used to make aluminium — as well as rich deposits of iron, gold and diamonds.