Senegal’s Faye to intercede between ECOWAS and military-ruled Sahel states

Senegal’s newly elected president Bassirou Faye said he will seek the re-integration of military ruled Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to the Western African community ECOWAS.

The three states have jointly announced their withdrawal from the ECOWAS, in protest over sanctions it imposed on them to pressure for a return to constitutional order.

“We can discuss with our brothers and convince them to come back into the fold,” Faye told Nigerian peer Ahmed Bola Tinubu when he visited the latter at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, last week.

Earlier, Tinubu, who currently serves as the Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State, had told Faye, “I am inviting you to collaborate and meet those other brothers, to persuade them to come back to the fold.”

Efforts to convince the three army-ruled nations to backtrack on their ECOWAS move have also been at the heart of Faye’s visit to Ghana.