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| The delegation with Jammeh |
President Muhammadu Buhari said on Tuesday
that Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh was receptive to a delegation of West
African leaders who visited Gambia to urge the long-ruling leader to step aside
following a poll defeat.
Asked if Jammeh
had been receptive, he told reporters shortly after the meeting: “Yes, very
much so.”
Earlier on
Tuesday, Gambia’s security forces entered the building of the Independent
Electoral Commission, instructed its chairman to leave and have since barred
other employees from entering, the chairman, Alieu Momarr Njai, told Reuters.
President
Buhari and other West African leaders including, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of
Liberia, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra-Leone and out-going President of
Ghana, John Mahama met with Jammeh who lost the presidential election
penultimate week.
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| The delegation with President elect |
A statement by
the presidential spokesman, Mr Femi Adesina, said Buhari and the other leaders
also met the president-elect of Gambia, Adama Barrow.
President
Jammeh had earlier conceded defeat in the election, after a 22-year rule, but
recanted a week later, asking for fresh polls to be conducted by a “God-fearing
and independent electoral commission.”
A senior
official of regional bloc Ecowas, Marcel de Souza, would not rule out sending
in troops. “We have done it in the past,” he told Radio France Internationale.
“We currently
have troops in Guinea-Bissau with the Ecomib mission. We have had troops in
Mali. And therefore it is a possible solution.”
Jammeh’s ruling
APRC party filed a petition on Tuesday with the Supreme Court, asking it to
annul the election results.
The president
had questioned the validity of the count after the electoral commission changed
some results, even though it insists the outcome was not affected.
Source:Daily Trust
Tags
Politics