West African leaders under the aegis of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have suspended Mali from the bloc following the recent coup in the country.
The West African Leaders made this announcement during a regional summit which held on Sunday.
According to ECOWAS, the sanction placed on Mali was due to the lack of political stability in the country.
Mali, on Monday recorded a second coup within nine months.
Meanwhile, at the meeting, ten regional heads of state and three foreign ministers attended the extraordinary summit in Accra, with former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan serving as mediator in the crisis.
Announcing the decision of the ECOWAS after the meeting, Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, stated that the suspension will take effect immediately and will last till a democratically elected government takes over the leadership of the country.
“The suspension from ECOWAS takes immediate effect until the deadline of the end of February 2022 when they are supposed to hand over to a democratically elected government,” Botchwey stated.
Recall that Colonel Assimi Goita, the Mali’s new interim president, and the leader of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (NCSP), led a military junta that seized power from former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in the 2020.
Goita who led the military junta alleged Keïta of being corrupt and lacked capacity to quell a bloody jihadist insurgency.
After the takeover, the military agreed to appoint civilians as interim president and prime minister under pressure from ECOWAS.
However, last Monday, military officers detained the transitional president Bah Ndaw and prime minister Moctar Ouane and were later released on Thursday.
Following the release of the duo, they both tendered their resignation letter.
This has in turn triggered diplomatic uproar as many foreign government agencies and institutions have issued warnings to Mali.
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