Akufo-Addo To Hold Talks With Political Stakeholders In Togo

Nana Akufo-Addo will Monday morning mediate the political impasse between the Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé and the opposition coalition.

The dialogue is part of a six-month-long attempt to end the series of protests that have claimed at least sixteen lives.

The meeting today is expected to chart a credible way forward on the political future of Togo.

It will be the first formal dialogue between the members of the fourteen opposition parties and incumbent President.

- President Akufo-Addo has been mediating the impasse since last year.

Director of Communications the Presidency, Eugene Arhin, is confident President Akufo-Addo will bring a resolution to the matter.

“It is just a continuation of the processes he’s been engaged in since last year,” he said.

Since the advent of multiparty politics in the early 1990s, some 15 dialogues and talks have been held in Lomé, the Togolese capital without ever leading to a political transformation.

- Protests have claimed at least 16 lives
The reform of presidential mandates and the voting system, already provided for in the 2006 Comprehensive Political Agreement has never been carried out, despite the fact that it was meant to appease a country frustrated by the violence following the election of Faure Gnassingbé.

Faure Gnassingbé‘s party has reiterated in the local media that it would be “out of the question” to discuss the immediate departure of the Head of State or a commitment on his part to leave power.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com