-----Trip to Italy is 125th foreign trip in 6 years
Accra, Oct 27 (Palaver) -- African leaders met at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last week to try and solve Cote d’Ivoire’ political impasse, but the Head of State whose country stands to lose most if the Cote d’Ivoire crisis should implode or explode, President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana, was not there! Ghana’s President had chosen that period in the critical Ivorian crisis to embark on his 125th foreign trip in the 6 years of his Presidency to visit Europe, Italy to be specific.
Elections due in Cote d’Ivoire this month have been postponed because the country has remained divided, while militias and rebels have not been disarmed. The AU was expected to focus on the role of President Laurent Gbagbo.
The Ivorian President insists that he should remain in power until elections are held; a suggestion strongly opposed by the rebels and opposition groups. In the end, the eight leaders who constitute the AU Peace and Security Council recommended to the UN Security Council that Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo stay in office for another year until the country can hold elections.
But the leaders also said that Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny should be given more power, including control over the armed forces.
In addition, the South African Head of State, Thabo Mbeki, who is seen as a supporter of his Ivorian counterpart, was removed from his role as the mediator in the crisis.
Ghana is not a member of the AU Peace and Security Council, but given her proximity to the Cote d’Ivoire (she is Ghana’s western neighbour) and the fact that President Kufuor was the first to attempt to solve the crisis, observers expected that he would be in Addis Ababa to give the other leaders the benefit of his special knowledge of the situation. He preferred to go to Italy instead.
President Kufuor’s total trips are expected to hit 128 by the end of the year when he embarks on his announced planned trips to Romania, China and Nigeria.
