West African leaders have flown into the Gambia to make a final attempt to persuade Yahya Jammeh to step down when his presidential term ends next week.



Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and John Mahama, who conceded defeat in last month’s elections in Ghana, arrived in the capital, Banjul, on Friday morning to try to change Jammeh’s mind after he declared his country’s election void after his first defeat in 22 years.

“Only God knows what will happen,” Buhari said on his way to the meeting.

Last month, the same delegation failed to reach a deal with the outgoing president, but the Nigerian foreign minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, was confident that on this occasion, just six days before the planned inauguration of the new president, they would succeed.

“The purpose of the visit is to meet Jammeh so everybody can agree on a roadmap going forward,” he said.

“We’re pretty optimistic that the talks will not fail this time because it is on the basis of these talks that everybody can now begin to see which option they could take.”



Jammeh initially accepted the result of a tense election, which saw Adama Barrow, a former estate agent, lead an opposition coalition to victory, and triggered a national outpouring of joy and celebration that its decades under an erratic and autocratic leader were over.



Gambian president-elect Adama Barrow. Photograph: Seyllou/AFP/Getty

However, Jammeh later reversed his position, claiming that errors made by the electoral commission necessitated the holding of new elections under a new commission, as he said the old one, which he had appointed, was not independent.



He took his case to the supreme court this week but, because it had no sitting judges, the chief justice said the earliest the case could be dealt with was May.



Jammeh’s lawyer then filed an injunction at the supreme court to prevent the chief justice from swearing in Barrow as president, and to stop Barrow from attending his own inauguration.

The Gambian bar association responded that any attempt to stop the inauguration would be treason.



After a more conciliatory midnight broadcast by Jammeh this week, in which he said there would be no arrests related to activities in the election period, his newly appointed information minister reiterated that the president would not step down.



Nigeria’s lower house voted on Thursday to allow Buhari to offer Jammeh asylum in his country were he to step down.

Asked whether he would extend the offer to Jammeh in person, Buhari appeared to suggest that he knew of no such decision.



The chair of the African Union commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said: “The Gambia voted, the president-elect was voted and he should be installed when the time comes. The will of the people must be respected.”