Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed dismay over the recent military takeover in Guinea Bissau, describing the incident as more painful to him than his electoral loss to former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
Jonathan, who was in the country as part of the West African Elders Forum to monitor presidential and parliamentary elections, narrowly avoided being stranded following the power seizure. He raised serious questions about the nature of the crisis, suggesting the incident was not a genuine military coup.
Jonathan, a known proponent of democratic stability in West Africa, focused his criticism on the circumstances surrounding the event, particularly the actions of the now-detained President Umaro Embaló.
The former President stated in a video interview that his involvement in restoring democracy to Guinea Bissau since the 2012 crisis made the collapse of the process particularly disturbing.
He argued that it was irregular for President Embaló himself to announce his own arrest via phone while still speaking to international media.
What happened in Guinea Bissau is quite disturbing to me… I feel more pain than the day I called Buhari to congratulate him when I lost the election as a sitting president. I’m a Nigerian close to 70 and I know how they keep Heads of State when a coup takes place… There is no way there will be a military coup at a time they were about to announce election results and the president was the person who announced the coup. What happened in Guinea Bissau, I would not call it a coup; it was not a coup. For lack of a better word, I will say it was a ceremonial coup
Jonathan called on regional bodies, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU), to release the full election results which he said were reported as peaceful by observer missions. He also demanded the release of the main opposition leader, Fernando Dias, from military custody.
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