West African leaders have elected Guinea Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo as the new chairman of the bloc.
Mr Embalo was unveiled at the latest heads of state summit of the group in the Ghanaian capital, Accra on Sunday.
The Bissau Guinean leader succeeds Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo Dankwa, who held the mantle for the last two years.
The ECOWAS chairmanship position is rotational, and the person serves for a year. But President Akufo-Addo served for nearly two years.
The leadership of the ECOWAS Commission also changed hands, with Gambian diplomat Omar Alieu Touray taking over as the new President of the Commission, replacing Ivorian Jean-Claude Kassi Brou.
The ECOWAS Commission is the secretariate of the bloc, which oversees the implementation of the leaders’ decisions,
Mr Brou was in charge of the Commission since 2018.
Sunday’s summit was convened primarily to decide on the future of three members of the bloc which have been under military rule for some time – Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso.
While the Malian junta is hoping to have sanctions imposed on the country lifted, the leaders are expected to decide on whether to impose sanctions on the other two which are under pressure to provide acceptable timetable to democracy.
The summit was also billed to deliberate on issues of insecurity in the region.
