Coup d’état
Nigeria, France, others condemn Mali coup
As world leaders condemn the latest coup in Mali, the military has said that both interim President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane have been stripped of their positions. The junta accused both of “sabotage” in the transition quest of the country. It added that it would “proceed as normally, and the scheduled elections will be held in 2022.” This came a day after the military seized both men alongside defence minister Souleymane Doucouré in an apparent coup in the unstable West African nation. This is Mali’s second coup in nine months. Ndaw and Ouane had been tasked with overseeing an 18-month transition back to civilian rule which was billed to end with an election next year March. But the leader of the latest coup, Assimi Goïta, a colonel, in a televised statement on Tuesday, ac...
Chad rebels ready for ceasefire; opposition presses for civilian rule
Rebels in northern Chad are ready to observe a ceasefire and to discuss a political settlement after the battlefield death of President Idriss Deby last week, a rebel spokesman said on Sunday. The rebels, known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), came over the northern border from Libya on April 11 calling for an end to Deby’s 30-year rule. They came as close as 200-300 km (125-185 miles) from the capital N’Djamena before being pushed back by the army. Deby was killed on Monday while visiting troops at the front, just after he won an election. His death shocked the Central African country, which has long been a Western ally against Islamist militants. The air force has since bombarded rebel positions, the military and rebels said. The military said on Saturday it had “annih...
Guinea court declares Alpha Conde elected president
Guinea’s Constitutional Court on Saturday declared incumbent Alpha Conde had been re-elected for a controversial third term as president at the age of 82, while his main opponent called for resistance “by all legal means”. With 59.5 percent of the votes cast, Conde’s support was above the absolute majority needed to win in the first round, judges found, throwing out challenges to the October 18 ballot from figures including his main opponent Cellou Dalein Diallo. The official count from the Ceni national election commission gave Diallo 33.5 percent. But the 68-year-old insists that data his activists gathered at polling stations shows he won the vote and is the victim of fraud. While observers from other African countries have backed the official results, France, the European Union and Uni...
Governor Tambuwal: Rigging Edo election is ‘coup’ against the people
The Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, has said any electoral victory obtained through means other than the legitimate votes of the people was nothing short of a coup d’état. Tambuwal said the Edo State Governorship Election scheduled to hold on Saturday as well as the Ondo State governorship election scheduled for October 10, were test cases of our preparedness for a rule-based and consent-enabled governance. He said this in a statement titled “Tambuwal: Rigging is coup d’état,” which he signed and issued to commemorate the 2020 edition of United Nations International Day of Democracy, on Tuesday. The United Nations General Assembly in 2017 resolved to observe 15 September of every year as the International Day of Democracy — with the purpose of promoting and upholding the principl...
Mali: ECOWAS to hold emergency meeting
The Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) will on Thursday hold an Extraordinary Summit on the socio-political situation in Mali. The Directorate of Communications of the ECOWAS Commission made this known in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja. The summit would be held virtually through video conference. The summit became necessary following the military coup d’etat that took place in the Republic of Mali on Tuesday. Newsmen recall that President Ibrahim Keita and his government resigned after soldiers arrested him. The soldiers have set up a body to work out modalities for elections. ECOWAS has strongly condemned the undemocratic change of government, adding that it is against its protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. The Au...
