Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has told the BBC that Gambian President Yahya Jammeh played a “ruse” on her by recording a telephone conversation between the two leaders and broadcasting it later on national TV.
During the call Mr Jammeh said he had filed an injunction at the supreme court – which the chief justice today said he would not rule on – and asked West African regional body Ecowas to help supply new judges, saying the only “peaceful resolution of the impasse was through the courts”.
Ms Sirleaf said she would “work on this right away”.
She has now told BBC Focus on Africa radio that Mr Jammeh had been playing a game with her:
“Unfortunately, being the person that he is, he recorded and televised the conversation without advising me of his intent to do so.”
Let me make it very, very clear. There is no change in Ecowas’s position. The constitution of the Gambia must be respected.”
My only duty was to take his appeal and pass it on to the mediating team.”
At the time he called me I was thinking that he was going to find a way out of this and he was going to be able to work with the team but clearly, clearly it was just a game. It was just a ruse on his part.”
BBC
