Former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan is expected to lead other West African leaders to Mali in “search for solutions” to the recent coup in the country.
Mali’s elected President, Ibrahim Keita, resigned office after being detained on Tuesday alongside the Prime Minister, Boubou Cisse, and other senior officials by mutinying soldiers.
Jonathan had told President Muhammadu Buhari earlier on Tuesday before the coup that Mali’s main opposition group, M5, was adamant on its call for the resignation of Keita.
“If it pleased certain elements of our military to decide this should end with their intervention, do I really have a choice? (I must) submit to it, because I don’t want any bloodshed,” Keita said in a television broadcast on Wednesday.
On Thursday ECOWAS said it would dispatch a high-level delegation “to ensure the immediate return of constitutional order” and also demanded that Keita be restored as President.
AFP reports on Friday that Jonathan, who is ECOWAS Special Envoy to Mali, alongside 14 other leaders in the regional bloc, will be in the Malian capital of Bamako for peace talks with the junta leaders including Assimi Goita who has declared himself head of the junta.
“We will receive the ECOWAS delegation with pleasure… it is important to talk to our brothers,” AFP quoted a junta official in the country saying.
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