On Sunday, September 6, 2021, Army Colonel,MamadyDoumbouya, the Commander of the Special Forces, an elite military unit of Guinea, led soldiers to oust the country’s president, 83-year-old Alpha Conde, who had changed the constitution to enjoy a third term.
The resultant junta, the National Rally and Development Committee (CNRD), cited mismanagement and high-place corruption as the reason for the ouster.
The expression of joy by Guineans spoke volumes of support for the coup leaders, yet the ouster was condemned globally, including the regional and continental bodies,the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) respectively, probably because the whole world prefers constitutional rule.
OnSeptember 8, 2021, the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government held a virtual Extraordinary Summit on the political situation in Guinea.
The Summit suspended the membership of Guinea from ECOWAS; a decision the AU Peace and Security Council has endorsed and gone further to call on the UN Security Council to validatesame.
Then on Friday, September 10, 2021, the Authority sent a high-level delegation to Guinea to meet the junta and assess the situation and report back to the Heads of State.
Yesterday, the Authority held a summit in Accra to, among other things, consider the recommendations of the September 8 delegation, including forcing the junta to appoint a “credible” civilian prime minister as soon as possible to help guide Guinea back to constitutional order.
ECOWAS has finally given the junta six months to return their country to constitutional rule.
In the scheme of things of the world political order today, ECOWAS was expected to respond to the coup in Guinea accordingly but it seems leaders of blocs in the world take citizens of their member states for granted in many ways.
It is sad to say, even if it would be regarded as a perception, that such blocs, particularly the political ones, are in to pander to the whims and caprices of the political class and so care less or not at all about the oppression the class takes the citizens through.
It cannot be denied that the leaders of the blocs look on when their fellow heads of state are pursuing personal interests at the peril of the citizenry.
Even though, the Ghanaian Times has no intentions to show disdain towards ECOWAS as a bloc, it wishes to ask its leadership why they could not stop the Alpha Condes and the Ouattaras when they were changing their countries’ constitutions for them to secure third terms.
While pursuing such agendas some citizens died but the Guinean coup plotters shed no blood. Think about it.
In August 2020, ECOWAS imposed sanctions on Mali following a coup there and called for a one-year deadline for new elections but later consented to the junta leaders’ plan and accepted an 18-month timeframe instead that ends in February 2022.
Mali, for instance, was a stable country, having been a model of democracy for two decades till March 2012 when it suffered a coup which shocked the world and ever since, it has not been politically well.
It is about time ECOWAS analysed the political malady in their member states, particularly the Francophone ones, and fix them and spare all of us the pressures and sanctions that usually jeopardise the lives of citizens and development of the countries concerned.
