ON SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2021, Guineans witnessed the forceful removal from office of their President, Professor Alpha Conde, by Guinean army.
THE DETHRONED PRESIDENT was serving his third term, which he manipulated by tampering with the Guinean Constitution against the popular will of the people; as well as the reported increment of salaries for the president and members of parliament, while the security apparatus and other civil servants were left out of the increment.
GUINEA UNDER CONDE’S rule has witnessed violence upon violence, sometimes resulting to the deaths of innocent civilians, activists or state actors, as well as the detention of people deemed detractors of the regime.
WE THINK PROFESSOR Conde was now being seen as a tyrant against his own people because he forced himself to lead for a third term when his critics and the opposition community in Guinea disagreed to go that route.
IT IS AN open secret that the last elections that offered Professor Conde the third term were characterized by bloodbath, a signal and warning that what unfolded on Sunday was an unexploded but awaited bomb that would end his rule dishonorably.
WE MUST BE clear that coup d’état is not a democratic process that elects one to the highest seat of any nation, but the ballot box does. However, most of our leaders in Africa have the audacity to invite coup plotters to undermine democracy on the continent.
IT IS REGRETTABLE that, while the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) are strongly against military coup d’état, dictators who perpetuate themselves into power still give rise to conspiracy that delivers power through gun rather than ballot box.
LIKE OTHERS WHO believe in a democratic process, we condemn the coup d’état in Guinea, hoping that a civilian rule can be restored as quickly as possible to the people of that West African country, void of prolonged chaos and sufferings.
ON THIS NOTE, we wish to caution our leaders in the sub- region and other parts of African who would choose to manipulate the organic laws of their countries to perpetuate themselves into power, to see the coup d’état in Guinea as a moral lesson to learn.
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