Guinea Bissau’s President Umaru Cissoco Embalow this week
became the second West African head of state to visit Guinea, despite
an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
sanction on the country.
Mr Embalow’s visit, to some political observers, represents further
signs of a split within the sub regional grouping on the right approach
to the Guinean crisis.
The Bissau Guinean President arrived in Conakry on Wednesday, and
he was received by junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya and
members of diplomatic missions in Guinea at the foot of the aircraft,
from where he was transported to the Mohammed (V) Palace in the
Conakry neighbourhood of Kaloum for a closed-door meeting.
The visit, described by the authorities as a ‘friendly state visit”, comes
about a week after a similar one by Sierra Leone’s President Julius
Maada Bio, who came under criticism at home for what critics say
amounted to undermining the decision by the bloc to punish Guinea
for the military’s takeover.
Bio has since rejected that accusation, arguing that he went to Guinea
for matters concerning the national interest of his country.
But the Sierra Leonean leader also raised eyebrows when he went
further to question ECOWAS’ tough stance against the junta, noting
that it could be counterproductive.
“We cannot help the situation there by keeping away from Guinea.
We have to be there. We have to talk to the people there, understand
what they want to do and influence them to do it the way they can do
it so that it is acceptable to the international community,” Bio said.
That statement has been interpreted as a recognition of the junta, and
it is significant, coming from the leader of one of Guinea’s closest
neighbors.
Sierra Leone is one of six countries that share borders with Guinea.
The others are Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Senegal and Cote
d’Ivoire.
Although the exact reason for Embalow’s visit is yet to be known, it
is safe to say that Bio has one more colleague that thinks like him in
this matter. This is perhaps the point the Sierra Leonean President’s
spokesman, Yusuf Keketoma Sandi, was trying to make when he
shared the official facebook page of the Bissau Guinean President
announcing his visit to Conakry.
Embalow is indeed one of a growing list of leaders in the sub region
who have openly spoken against the role undemocratic actions by
leaders play in the apparent resurgence of military coups in Africa in
general and West Africa in particular. His condemnation of the trend
back in 2020, during a virtual ECOWAS heads of state summit on the
first coup in Mali, sowed the seed of discord between him and the
deposed former Guinean President Alpha Conde, who was at the time
seeking his controversial third term.
Embalow said back then that ECOWAS should adopt a similar
attitude in condemning coup towards leaders who manipulated their
constitutions to extend their stay in power, stressing that “third terms
are also coups d ‘état.”
Reports indicate that Ivoirian President Alassane Ouattara, who was
also seeking a third term at the time, received the remarks with
disdain.
Liberian President George Weah may have borrowed a leaf from
Embalow when during the last ECOWAS leaders’ summit on the
Guinea coup he also questioned the role presidential term extension
plays in the resurgence of coups and called for action on it by the
bloc.
Under Conde, the two Guineas had estranged relationship. The border
between the two countries was shut down by the Conde
administration, until last month when the junta regime reopened it.
Guinea Bissau has itself seen a fair share of military coups.
Last week fears of another coup gripped the country after a top
military official alleged that some members of the army were seeking
to overthrow the civilian administration. President Embalow was on a
visit to Paris at the time, and his government immediately dismissed
the report.
Embalow’s election in late 2019 had rekindled hope for a new
beginning for the country whose main export is cashew nut and had
for a long time been on the cusps of a failed state due to the influence
of drug dealers.
While in Conakry on Wednesday, Embalow recalled Guinea’s role in
resolving his country’s crisis.
“I am very grateful. The people of Guinea-Bissau remain very grateful
to Guinea,” he was quoted.
The coups in Mali and Guinea may have been widely condemned, but
they have also served as a blessing in that they have pushed
ECOWAS to rethink its position on issues that were previously
considered taboo.
Presidential term limit and democratic tenets in the region dominated
the just concluded ECOWAS Parliament Extraordinary Summit in
Ghana, thanks to the two crises. The 10-day meeting hosted in the
Ghanaian coastal city of Winneba laid what has been described as the
foundation for key reforms in the ECOWAS protocols relating to
Good Governance, which had come under tight scrutiny in the wake
of the coups in the two countries.
Sierra Leonean lawmaker and Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament,
Mohamed Sidi Tunis, was emphatic in his condemnation of
“undemocratic” actions of leaders which lead to coups. He warned
that the bloc risked being perceived as a body of failed states if action
wasn’t taken against tenure elongations and undemocratic
constitutional amendments.
“Amending a constitution to conform to current realities is not in
itself a problem. When the proposed amendments to the constitution
protect the governing elite at the expense of citizens or will
undermine the very nature of constitutional democracy, thereby
granting an incumbent undue advantage to extend his mandate, then
we have a problem,” he said.
He added: “If we do not take firm and very decisive actions against
this ugly trend, ECOWAS will not only be perceived as a body of
failed States but will indeed fail.”
Tunis further stressed that considering the effect the current status quo
had caused the region and the toll they continued to have on the
region, it had become necessary that the leaders went beyond
statements that merely condemned such actions and consider
imposing harsher penalties on would be perpetrators.
Held on the theme: “Evaluating Two Decades Of Democratic
Elections In The ECOWAS Region: Achievements, Challenges And
The Way Forward”, the event was designed to assess the electoral
systems in Member States and identify the challenges and proffer
solutions to the shortcomings in the organization of elections.
Ghanaian President and current Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority
of Heads of State and Government, Nana Akufo-Addo, delivered the
keynote address, in which he made a case for the democratization of
the ECOWAS parliament itself as a starting point to the overall goal
of the meeting.
