Presidents Johnson Sirleaf and Macky Sall |
The video tape was heavily edited to give a nervous Gambian population the false assurance that ECOWAS will not exercise the military option against Jammeh and his renegade regime that will become illegal in few hours time.
Reacting to Jammeh's latest prank, the Liberia president said in a BBC interview "unfortunately, being the person that he is, he recorded and televised the conversation without advising me of his intent to do so." It was obvious as we have outlined in our previous blog post, he edited the video to give the impression that ECOWAS was going to consider his request for judges to sit on the Gambia Supreme Court to deliberate on his applications to nullify the election results and the injunction request to bar Adama Barrow from being inaugurated on the 19th January.
A flustered Chairman of ECOWAS didn't leave any doubt that if Jammeh's intention was to portray her in a bad light and to give the false impression that the regional body was wavering on its stance about the various options on the table, the Liberian President was emphatic when she said " let me make it very, very clear. There is no change is ECOWAS' position. The constitution of The Gambia must be respected."
She continued to say to the BBC that "my only duty was to take his appeal and pass it on to the mediating team. At the time he called me, I was thinking that he was going to find a way out of this and he was going to be able to work with the team but clearly, clearly it was just a game. It was just a ruse on his part."
Meanwhile, at the National Assembly in Banjul today, a debate is on on a resolution thanking the ECOWAS Member States for their efforts in solving the political impasse peacefully which was the entire purpose of setting up the ECOWAS Chairperson to give the impression of entertaining a request from Jammeh that will only serve to prolong his illegal stay at the State House for more of his mischief making.
At tomorrow's seating of the National Assembly, a resolution condemning the African Union's Peace and Security Council and the Government of Senegal for interfering in the internal affairs of The Gambia.