Five West African presidents cancelled their planned visit to Togo on Friday to press the country's new leader Faure Gnassingbe to hold a free presidential election after he refused to meet them in the capital Lome, insisting instead that they fly to the northern town of Kara.
| "Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Hold an election, then call us." |
The presidents issued a joint statement deploring the situation in Togo, where Gnassingbe seized power with the backing of the armed forces following the death in office of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema on 5 February.
| He will be sorely missed from the world stage. |
They ordered the Togolese government representatives to attend a summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger on Saturday. If the Togolese authorities failed to attend this meeting, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would impose immediate sanctions on Togo, the presidents of Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Benin and Mali added. The presidents of the ECOWAS member states assembled on Friday morning in Cotonou, the capital of neighbouring Benin, for preliminary talks in the airport's VIP lounge.
| "Stewardess! More broiled dik-dik here!" |
But Benin government sources said their plans to fly on together for a meeting with Gnassingbe in Togo fell through after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo insisted that the encounter take place in Lome. Gnassingbe switched the talks venue from Lome to Kara on Thursday and prevented a Nigerian plane carrying an advance party of Obasanjo's aides from landing in the Togolese capital.
| Afraid Olusegun's aides might be packing head, was he? |
This angered Obasanjo, who initially announced that he was cancelling plans to fly to Togo as part of the ECOWAS mission. Officials in the Nigerian capital Abuja said on Friday morning that Obasanjo had relented after receiving an apology from the Togolese government. But officials in Benin said Gnassingbe's insistence that the talks take place in Kara, his father's birth place, 400 km north of the capital, made Obasanjo dig his heels in and refuse to go. |