Former President Goodluck Jonathan asked the question “who is fooling whom?” concerning the coup d’etat that took place towards the end of November in the tiny West African nation of Guinea-Bissau. A presidential election had been conducted peacefully and fairly, observers said and the result was to be announced when the army announced it had taken power and suspended the announcement of the outcome of the poll. Before then, the incumbent President, Umaro Embalo and his main challenger Fernando Dias, had each claimed victory. The confusion apparently was the raison d’etre for the supposed coup. However, Jonathan, who was in that country to monitor the election for the African Union and Ecowas, believed there was no coup perse.
Jonathan, then back in Abuja, said he suspected the president, who was seeking reelection, stage-managed the takeover to perpetuate his rule through the proxy of the military. [He is himself a former army general]. Jonathan gave a number of reasons for his suspicions. One, it was the president who announced the coup in a phone call to a French newsmagazine. Second, in a classic coup, the overthrown president would be placed under house arrest and denied contact with the outside world. In the Guinea-Bissau case, the president wasn’t arrested and still had use of his phone and could call just about anybody he wanted. Only Dias has been detained. Thirdly, Embalo arranged with the government of neighbouring Senegal to send a plane to take him into ‘exile’, even though the country’s borders were closed. “What happened in Guinea-Bissau was not a coup; maybe, for want of a better word, I would say it was a ceremonial coup. It [was] President Umaro Embaló that announced the coup,” said the former Nigerian leader. “Later, a military man came up to address the world that they were in charge of everywhere. Embaló had already announced the coup, which is strange. Not only announcing the coup, but Embaló was using his phone and addressing media organisations across the world that he had been arrested. I’m a Nigerian, and I know how heads of state are treated when there’s a coup.” Correct, our Jonathan was. For example, in Niger to Nigeria’s north, the soldiers who overthrew the sitting president Mohamed Bazoum in 2024 was detained in the presidential palace for over a year. Same in Mali and Burkina Faso years earlier.
Jonathan said this theatre of the absurd in Guinea-Bissau must not be allowed to stand. The AU and Ecowas should announce the winner of the election, which was all but finalized. This they must do to preserve “democratic integrity,” he stated. “ECOWAS officials were at all the [nine] regions when the results were collated. They cannot change those results. They should tally all those results and announce [them]. They must announce [the outcome], let the world know who won that election. They owe the world that responsibility.”
The ex Nigerian president is right to be angry. He had travelled that long distance between Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau to “observe” a presidential election that was now being held up as a political farce. He also risked being killed if there had been full-blown war in that country. What more, he faced a similar situation in 2015 when, as president, he sensed he was losing his reelection bid, and, facing down his party men, he chose to concede defeat to the eventual winner. He did so for the love democracy, according to him. He expected Embalo to do the same, but he didn’t. That’s Jonathan’s disappointment. But come to think of it, what has happened in Guinea-Bissau is deja vu. Virtually all coups that have succeeded have been called for by politicians, often those on the losing side. Journalist Karl Maier says so in his book “Nigeria In Crisis”. He quotes former military president Ibrahim Babangida, whom he interviewed extensively, and who himself came to power through a coup, as admitting: “We couldn’t have done it without collaborators in the civil society – collaborators in the media, collaborators among people who the means. Because the means [funds] were not easily available but we received some from people who were convinced it was the right thing to do.” [Babangida held power for nine years, 1984-1993] In Guinea-Bissau, President Embalo, a military leader, who transformed himself to an elected president, knew that the one way to remain in office was to invite his former military constituency to save his skin. They obliged him. The question is, will the outside world oblige him too? Allow the farce to stand? Jonathan has spoken. Is the world listening?
