U.S. Worried Over Gambian Crisis

ders including President Muhammafu Buhari of Nigeria are to depart for the Gambia to tell long-ruling leader Yahya Jammeh(NAN)

This is even as West African Leaders including President Muhammafu Buhari of Nigeria are to depart for the Gambia to tell long-ruling leader Yahya Jammeh to accept his election defeat and step down.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the newsmen after a meeting with the 15-member Security Council that it was a very dangerous moment for the country.

She said some military officers had sided with Jammeh following his shock reversal. But she added that the Council was unified in its condemnation of the former coup leader’s actions.

“Everybody is singing from the same sheet of music and the song is clear: you have lost the election, President Jammeh, and you must give up power peacefully,” Power said.

Recall that Jammeh had conceded defeatto Adama Barrow immediately after the results of the Dec. 1 election were announced, but in a swift u-turn, The authoritarian leader who had been in power for 22 years, rejected the election results on Friday.

He insists that he would challenge the results in the Supreme Court, a situation that suggests that Barrows victory could be upturned.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel peace laureate and current chair of the West African regional body ECOWAS, is due to travel to Gambia on Tuesday.

She will lead a delegation of other West African Leaders including President John Mahama of Ghana and Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone.

Foreign Ministry of Gambia’s neighbours, Senegal, which has grown intolerant of Jammeh, described the trip as “a last chance mission” for Gambia’s president.

The United States, European Union, African Union, United Nations and ECOWAS have all pressed Jammeh to respect the election result.

Source(NAN)