Liberia’s President, Ellen Sirleaf Mad at Jammeh Over Recorded Conversation

Liberia’s President, Ellen Sirleaf Mad at Jammeh Over Recorded Conversation

Liberia’s president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has expressed anger and disappointment at President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia for recording and broadcasting their private phone conversation.

Mrs Sirleaf accused Mr Jammeh of playing games.
“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 [mediation] team but clearly, clearly it was just a game. It was just a ruse on his part,” she told the BBC Focus On Africa Programme.
On Sunday, Mr Jammeh telephoned Mrs Sirleaf, chairperson of the regional bloc Ecowas, and appealed to her to help provide Supreme Court judges to preside over his election petition.

In the phone conversation which was broadcast on state television, Mr Jammeh said he want to resolve the election dispute peacefully through the court in line with the provisions of the Gambian constitution.
He also told Mrs Sirleaf that he had filed an injunction at the supreme court, which the Chief Justice today declined to hear.

But Sirleaf said it is unfortunate that Mr Jammeh had recorded the conversation without advising her of his intention.

“Unfortunately, being the person that he is, he recorded and televised the conversation without advising me of his intent to do so,” she said.
“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.”