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The 62nd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is taking place this Sunday, November 4 in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
With our special correspondent and our correspondent in Abuja, Serge Daniel and Moses Gomis
The new President of the Commission, the Gambian Omar Alieu Touray will be sworn in at this summit before a closed session during which several subjects will be discussed.
First of all, ECOWAS mediators for Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, the three countries suspended following a coup, will present to the presidents reports of missions carried out in these three countries. « We must support these states suspended from the authorities of ECOWAS, but we are not in favor of the military continuing in power », comments an official of the ECOWAS Commission.
In Guinea, a 24-month transition is already in place, but it remains to be determined when it will start, or when it started. In Burkina Faso, the young captain Ibrahim Traoré arouses curiosity. As to Colonel Assimi Goita of Mali, we will talk about him in two files: that of the transition in his country and that concerning the Ivorian soldiers detained in Bamako for more than four months.
Then the subjects of the single currency in the sub-regional space and the fight against terrorism must also be mentioned by the participants. On this last point, the Heads of State will perhaps have to decide. ECOWAS has a plan to fight terrorism which has been in the drawer for a few years, but theInitiative d’Accra now exists. And some observers invite us to opt for a single strategy, and not two, in the sub-region.
Nocturnal exchanges
This 62nd ECOWAS summit therefore promises to be already busy. And the presidents did not wait for the opening to meet. As of Saturday, the corridors of the hotel where the heads of state reside were rich in exchanges and confabulations.
It is the continuation of the Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara who was the most requested. She was notably visited by the President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo. No official statement has been made but he came to greet and take advice from his counterpart, we learned.
On another floor of the same hotel, the Guinean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Morissanda Kouyaté, came to defend his country in the corridors of the summit but also to affirm Guinea’s firm desire to cooperate with the subregional organization for the smooth transition.
Inauguration of the new headquarters
A few hours before the summit, the presidents will participate in the inauguration of the new headquarters of the West African organization. For the laying of the foundation stone, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and the titular President of ECOWAS, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, will lead the delegation of Heads of State and Government. This site is programmed to house the Commission, the Parliament and the Court of Justice.
And it is China that takes care of all the financing for this project, which is expected to cost 32 million dollars, but whose final cost could be worth double. It took 10 years of exchanges between the two parties to reach an agreement, because ECOWAS took its time to negotiate certain clauses.
The construction will be done with 100% Chinese equipment and without transfer of skills. On the other hand, ECOWAS has obtained that a certain percentage of workers and subcontractors must come from the West African region.
With this new building, ECOWAS wants to boost its regional policies from a building complex ” world-class design “, according to the Commission of the West African organization.