Former President Jonathan has bagged a new appointment.
Newsone reports that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has saddled former Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan with a new responsibility to bring peace and stability among member states.
This online news platform understands that former President Jonathan’s new appointment is coming less than one year after ECOWAS appointed him as special envoy on its mediation mission in Mali, West Africa.
Newsone reports that former President Jonathan was on Thursday appointed as chairman of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, whose mandates include “Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Security.”
The new appointment, Newsone learned, indicates that ECOWAS is confident in former President Jonathan’s ability to help lead its efforts to manage and resolve disputes and conflicts in the West African region.
Newsone reports that as a special envoy, Jonathan had helped ECOWAS to facilitate dialogue with all principal stakeholders in Mali’s leadership crisis.
According to Jonathan’s media office, the former president’s mediation efforts led to the release of the interim President of Mali, Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane, by the country’s military.
While Jonathan was appointed chairman, former Executive Secretary of the Mano River Union of Guinea, Madam Hadja Saran Daraba was named vice-chairman of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise – a supportive organ with a mandate to bring peace and stability among member states.
ECOWAS revealed the appointments in a statement published on its website on Thursday, following a two-day meeting that ended on 25th May 2021, in Ghana.
Newsone reports that ECOWAS said the council which was established in 1999 had been lying dormant for years but was reconstituted lately due to the recent socio-political crisis across the region. Among the topical challenges bedeviling the West Africa region including Nigeria are terrorism and social unrest.
Meanwhile, Newsone Nigeria reports that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration of Ghana, Mrs. Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, on her part, urged the new leadership of the council to “assist ECOWAS in delivering on its peace and stability mandate as a necessary condition for continuous development and regional integration efforts