ECOWAS commends Nigeria, Senegal for successful elections

Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Mustapha Cisse Lo, has congratulated Nigeria and Senegal for conducting successful elections.Lo congratulated the two countries at the opening of the extra-ordinary session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Dakar, Senegal.

The Speaker of the regional parliament said the successful conduct of elections in the two countries would strengthen democracy in West Africa.

Lo, who congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari for his re-election as President of Nigeria and President Macky Sall for his re-election as President of Senegal, said: “Indeed, the Senegalese and Nigerian elections have proclaimed their results that were held on February 23, 2019 for Nigeria and February 24, 2019 for Senegal.”

“These elections witnessed the re-election of His Excellency, Muhammadu Buahari as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and His Excellency, Macky Sall, as the President of the Republic of Senegal.”

“I wish to affirm and re-affirm once again my congratulations to His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari and His Excellency, Macky Sall, for their brilliant successes at the polls, which have strengthened the genuineness of democracy in our sub-region.”

“I call on the political actors to continue to respect the official results of these elections in accordance with the relevant provisions of ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance.”

Lo, who spoke on the agenda of the 2019 extra-ordinary session of the Parliament, disclosed that the session aimed at discussing the activities and programmes of the Parliament for 2019, said: “We are meeting in Dakar to discuss activities and programmes of the Parliament for 2019, adopt the term of reference for the oversight missions and also discuss terms of reference for the sensitisation missions for the first semester of 2019.”

According to him, other details on the agenda of the session include “to adopt the terms of reference of the delocalise meetings of the parliament for the first semester 2019 and to adopt the recommendations of the parliamentary seminar on Single Currency of ECOWAS which has just ended.”

He commended the Secretary-General of the ECOWAS Parliament for organising activities of the Parliament despite all the constraints and limited resources at his disposal, especially in terms of human resources, saying: “In view of this challenge, we have to congratulate the administration.”The session will close on Thursday, March 14, 2019.