Togo: President Buhari, 5 other leaders demand roadmap on resolution of political impasse

President Muhammadu Buhari and five other concerned West African leaders have called for an immediate roadmap to pave the way for negotiations between the Togolese government led by President Faure Gnassingbe Eyadema and the opposition movement.

The urgent demand by the leaders came at a meeting to discuss the situation in Togo, which ended early on Thursday in Abidjan, on the sidelines of the African Union-European Union Summit.

The Presidents of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic and Guinea Conakry, attended the meeting with President Eyadema.

A statement by Mallam Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesman, said that the West African leaders asked the parties in Togo to urgently negotiate, without ‘‘any preconditions’’, and resolve the impasse in the interest of the well-being of the country and the region at large.

Recall that President Eyadema had given himself a deadline of Friday to provide the basis and framework for negotiations in response to the increasing list of demands put together by the opposition movement seeking to oust him from power after 12 years as President.

His late predecessor and father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, was the President of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005.