…As Military Junta Refuses To release Despot Conde
President Akufo-Addo’s visit to Guinea to negotiate for the release of deposed Guinean leader, Alpha Conde, from detention, has had the opposite effect.
Apparently, pissed off the more by the negotiation of the Ghanaian leader who doubles as the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Col. Mamady Doumbouya’s junta has tightened the incarceration of Conde declaring that the man will not be allowed out of the country.
The stiffer measures were communicated in a statement that the junta released barely hours after Akufo-Addo and Ouattara jetted out of the country.
“Contrary to the alleged rumors which are the subject of negotiations between ECOWAS and the CNRD, relating to the exit from the territory of the former President of the Republic, President Alpha Condé, the CNRD and its President, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, wish to inform national and international opinion that the former President of the Republic, President Alpha Condé, is and will remain in Guinea,” the military leadership of Guinea stated.
Mr. Akufo-Addo has added more bad luck to the woes of Alpha Conde with a miscalculated visit just days after ECOWAS laid a myriad of sanctions against the leaders of the junta.
The 83-year-old Conde had been ousted in a swift military coup d’état after citizens agitated against his treasonable change of the country’s constitution to allow him to be President for a third term. He had organized a farcical referendum and arm-twisted the judiciary to accept the changing of the constitution in his favour.
He has also brutally squashed all opposition to his blatant subversion of the sovereignty of Guinea.
He had led a two-man delegation, including Ivorian President, Alassane Ouattara, and Senegalese President Macky Sall, both of whom are in the same league with Conde. Quattara had also treasonably changed the Ivorian constitution to allow him to stay President for a third term, while Sall is being fingered for orchestrating a similar situation in Senegal.
Late last week, ECOWAS met in Accra to firm up a decision on the political situation in Guinea.
ECOWAS leaders in a communique after a summit, ordered a swift return to constitutional rule, asking the military rulers of that country to fix presidential and legislative elections within six months.
They also demanded the immediate and unconditional release of President Alpha Conde who has been detained since he was ousted on September 5, 2021, by an elite army unit led by a former French legionnaire, Lt. Col Mamady Doumbouya.
The regional body said the military rulers would be “individually and collectively responsible for the physical safety of President Conde” who is being held in detention at a military facility.
The bloc threatened to freeze the financial assets and also impose travel bans on Guinea’s military leaders and their relatives. But Lt. Col. Doumbouya had fired back at ECOWAS that he is a soldier and has no intention of travelling out of Guinea and definitely has no accounts that ECOWAS can freeze.
The military junta indicated on Friday that it would not bow to regional pressure and allow President Alpha Conde, who was detained since his overthrow on Sept. 5, to leave the country.