By BASHIR ADEFAKA
“President Muhammadu Buhari, outside his sanitised personal space, and in line with the prevalent Covid-19 safety rules, wears a mask as he jets out to Mali,” Onochie explained.
Just before misrepresentations begin to fly around, Social Media Aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Lauretta Onochie, took to her social media handle on Thursday, probably, to explain the wearing of face mask by her principal.
President Buhari is known not to wear the mask that is an integral part of anti-coronavirus safety measure all the while he has been within his abode of Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja, the Nigeria’s capital city.
She said, “President Muhammadu Buhari, outside his sanitised personal space, and in line with the prevalent Covid-19 safety rules, wears a mask as he jets out to Mali.”
President Muhammadu Buhari arrives Bamako Mali for Peace Mission by ECOWAS Heads of Government on Thursday 23rd July 2020.
The DEFENDER reports that Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had Wednesday night said in a statement that the President would Thursday depart for Bamako, Republic of Mali on a one-day visit, following the briefing by the ECOWAS Special Envoy to the country, former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Nigerian President and some ECOWAS leaders led by the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the sub-regional organisation, President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger Republic, according to Adesina’s statement, agreed to meet in Mali to engage in further consultations towards finding a political solution to the crisis in the country.
Host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire, he said, were expected to participate in the Bamako meeting.
Former President Jonathan was at the State House in company of President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, on Tuesday to brief President Buhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties.
“We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward,” President Buhari had said.
He thanked Dr Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, “which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.”
The former President had filled in President Buhari on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity to Mali, rocked by protests against President Keita, who has spent two out of the five years second term in office.
A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved, and the President resign, before peace can return to the country.
Crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.
Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.
Other pictorial representations of the President’s ceremonial arrival in Bamako, Mali Thursday:
President Buhari being received on arrival in Mali.
Malian troops mount a guard of honour as President Buhari arrives country.
