ECOWAS: No excuse for change of government by coup d’etat – Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS) has reaffirmed its stance that there is no excuse for a change of government by coup d’etat.

Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in a statement in Abuja, said the vice president spoke with newsmen after the ECOWAS Extraordinary Summit on the political situations in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea on Thursday in Accra.

According to him, as far as ECOWAS is concerned, there is only one way of changing government in the region; acceptable to all of the protocols, to even the political rights of the people and that is by a democratically elected government.

“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 Sissoco 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.”

On the situation in Mali, the vice president psaid that ECOWAS was 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,” he said.