BREAKING: Buhari Makes 1st Post-COVID-19 Lockdown Trip Out of Nigeria On Thursday

President Muhammadu Buhari will Thursday will travel to Bamako, Mali on Thursday, the Presidency has just announced.

It’s a one-day visit, “following the briefing by the ECOWAS Special Envoy to the country, former President Goodluck Jonathan.”

THE WHISTLER observes that this will be the first time Buhari will be travelling out of the country after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

The State House explained further that Buhari and some ECOWAS leaders would meet in Bamako as part of efforts to broker peace in that country’s political crisis.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, making the announcement, stated, “The Nigerian President and some ECOWAS leaders led by the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the sub-regional organisation, President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger Republic, agreed to meet in Mali to engage in further consultations towards finding a political solution to the crisis in the country.

“Host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire are expected to participate in the Bamako meeting.”

The State House recalled that Jonathan was at the Villa in company with the President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, on Tuesday to brief Buhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties.

“We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward,” Buhari had stated after receiving a report from Jonathan.

He thanked Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, “which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.”

On his part, Jonathan had filled in President Buhari on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity to Mali, rocked by protests against President Keita, who has spent two out of the five years second term in office.

A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved, and the President resign, before peace can return to the country.

Crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.

Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.