ECOWAS suspends all meetings

AFRICA’s sub-regional organisation, the Economic Community of West African States, has suspended all its meetings and activities pending when the sub-region would be able to contain the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease.

The decision to suspend all actives by ECOWAS was sequel to the death of two of its officials, who had contracted the virus in Lagos, through the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, who first brought the disease to Nigeria on July 20.

It was learnt that the directive to suspend activities by the body was aimed at stopping the spread of the virus among the citizens of member states.

The community is made up of 15 countries.

They are The Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Republic of Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana. Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Mali.

Others are Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

As a result of the development, the ECOWAS parliamentary security summit scheduled to hold in Nigeria between September 15 and 16 has been put on hold.

A source at the NILS said, “I wish to inform you that the Parliamentary Security Summit scheduled to hold on the 15th and 16th of September 2014 has been put on hold. We will inform you adequately and promptly as soon as a new date is fixed.

“I wish to add that the decision is as a result of a directive by ECOWAS Commission that all ECOWAS meetings be suspended as a precautionary measure to check the spread of Ebola virus among the citizens of member states.

“The security summit, under the auspices of the National Institute for Legislative Studies and the ECOWAS Parliament was set to examine the causal and aggravating factors of transnational crimes and terrorism in West Africa with a global perspective.”