ECOWAS Chairman, Tinubu in Senegal, meets with Sall over postponed elections

ECOWAS Chairman, Tinubu in Senegal, meets with Sall over postponed elections

•More protests expected this week

ECOWAS Chairman, President Bola Tinubu arrived in Senegal on Monday on a one-day working visit, amid severe constitutional turmoil, leading to protests, due to the postponement of the 25 February elections by President Macky Sall,  by six months.

Tinubu’s visit is coming on the heels of a ministerial meeting last Thursday in Abuja, where ECOWAS ministers applied diplomatic strategies to win back the three military governments of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to ECOWAS and to mend the Senegalese constitutional imbroglio, resulting from the postponement of the elections.

Senegal, was once the bastion and beacon of democracy, in West Africa, with no military coup, since its independence from France in 1960.

The ECOWAS ministerial meeting in Abuja last Thursday, chaired by Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, an amiable diplomat, was held without the presence of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and even Guinea.

It is imminent that Guinea might join the exit fray sooner or later, depending on the trajectory of events as they unfold.

It is unclear whether President Tinubu will succeed in persuading President Sall to renege on his current stance toward a postponement of the constitutionally scheduled February 25 elections.

Since the announcement of the postponement, there have been a series of protests in Senegal. It is imminent that there will be more protests this week.