The Gambia-ECOWAS-Summit

Gambian leader attends ECOWAS summit in Nigeria

APA-Banjul (The Gambia) The Gambian president Yahya Jammeh left Banjul on Sunday morning to attend the 34th ECOWAS summit, which takes place on Monday in Abuja, the Nigerian federal capital.

On top of the agenda of the summit is the rising global oil prices and the soaring cost of basic food items. The summit will also consider the reports and recommendations of the 6th May extraordinary meeting of the ministers of Agriculture, Finance and Trade on the twin challenges.

President Jammeh’s attendance has however come as a surprise to many people, both in The Gambia and in the sub-region, for the fact that it has been quite a long time he has not attended any ECOWAS function. His last summit was in 2005 in Accra when he failed in his bid to be elected as chairman.

At the same time, The Gambia has also recently failed to respond to a summons by the ECOWAS Community Court when the government was required to appear before the court to contest a case brought against it by the Media Foundation for West Africa for the detention of a Gambian journalist for more than two years without charge.

After several adjournments because of the failure of the Gambian authorities to attend, the court in May issued a judgment calling on the Gambia government to immediately release Chief Ebrima Manneh as well as pay him compensation of $100,000.

However, the government has neither released Manneh, nor as yet even reacted to the judgment.

SC/daj/APA

2008-06-22