The Nigeria’s former President, Goodluck Jonathan, who led the West African Elders Forum Election Observation Mission to monitor Guinea-Bissau’s presidential and legislative elections held last Sunday has alleged that President Umaro Embaló staged the military coup in Guinea-Bissau to avoid losing a presidential election.
Penpushing reports that Jonathan made the allegation while speaking with journalists after his return to Nigeria after being evacuated from Guinea-Bissau and declared that the military takeover was a “ceremonial coup”
The former President, therefore, demanded that the election results be announced adding that he would not categorise the incident in the country as a conventional coup, alleging that the event was staged to derail the announcement of the election results.
Penpushing further reports that Jonathan stated that no military leader would allow the ousted President to communicate with the media while being held in custody, arguing that President Umaro Embaló’s swift declaration that he had been arrested, despite freely speaking to international media on his phone, cast doubt on the plausibility of the claim.
“What happened in Guinea-Bissau is quite disturbing to me, a person who believes in democracy. In fact, I feel more pain than the day I called Buhari to congratulate him when I lost the election as a sitting president. It is painful for me that President Embaló was the one announcing a military takeover of the government. It is totally unacceptable’, he said.
“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 because it was President Embaló who announced the coup before the military later came up to address the world that they were in charge of the government’.
“Embaló had already announced that there was a coup, which is strange. Not only announcing the coup, but Embaló, while the coup took place, was using his phone and addressing media organisations across the world that he had been arrested. I’m a Nigerian close to 70, and I know how they keep Heads of State when a coup takes place’, Jonathan stated.
“They cannot be playing pranks; nobody should call others fools. There is no way there will be a military coup at a time when they were about to announce election results, and the president was the person who announced the coup. It doesn’t happen anywhere’, added.
Penpushing also reports that the coup occurred a day before the Guinea-Bissau electoral commission was to announce the winner of the presidential election, which pitted Embalo, candidate of the Madem‑G15 party, against leading opposition candidate Fernando Dias, candidate of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS).
The President, whose term officially ended in February, sought to be the first president in 30 years to secure a second consecutive term, recalling that in March Embalo he would be a candidate for his own succession
Penpushing reports that it would be recalled that shortly after the coup, Embalo recounted to Jeune Afrique, a French-language weekly magazine, that soldiers detained him in his office at the presidential palace at around 1 p.m.
The President claimed that the military acted without violence and tagged the incident a coup, while on Thursday, his (Embalo’s) Chief of Army Staff, Horta Inta-A, assumed power as the transitional President.
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