Jonathan calls for release of Guinea-Bissau presidential election results, urges ECOWAS, AU to act
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has called for the immediate release of the Guinea-Bissau presidential election results, warning that withholding them would undermine democracy in the West African region.
Jonathan made the call during an interview with the press in Abuja on Friday, where he stated that the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS have access to the authentic results and should therefore have them published.
“My conviction is that ECOWAS and the AU must announce the results. They have the results. They were present in all the regions. They should tally the figures and announce the winner. They cannot force the military out, but they must let the world know who won that election. They owe the world that responsibility,” the ex-President said.
While recalling the long-standing instability in the West African nation, Jonathan recalled his efforts during his time as Nigeria’s President to help stabilize and return the country to democratic governance, while expressing concern for the current situation which he described as troubling.
“Who is fooling whom? What happened in Guinea-Bissau is disturbing to me as someone who believes in democracy. I feel more pained than the day I called [former President Muhammadu] Buhari to congratulate him after losing the election as a sitting President,” he said.
Jonathan who led the West African Elders Forum delegation team to monitor the election, fingered the sitting President of Guinea-Bissua Umaro Embalo in the coup plot, stating that the polls were peaceful and credible, and that the nine regional results had been collated and almost ready for announcement before the sudden coup declaration.
He further urged ECOWAS leaders to show the same firmness he displayed during the 2010 Côte d’Ivoire post-election crisis, when he served as the ECOWAS Chairman.
“While we were waiting for the final announcement, President Embalo suddenly declared there was a coup and that he had been arrested. But from all indications, nobody arrested him.
“The leadership of ECOWAS and AU must be courageous. I am not asking anyone to mobilize soldiers. There is no need to spill blood. But the results are there. Nobody should play pranks or treat others as fools”, he asserted.
On the issue of the depleting ECOWAS membership due to several coups in the West African region in recent years, the ex-Nigerian President stated: “Don’t worry. Even if only five countries remain in ECOWAS, so be it. It is costly to do the right thing, but ECOWAS must not bother. If Guinea-Bissau wants to join the military camp, they should.”
Citizens of Guinea-Bissau who had gone to the polls on Sunday, woke up to a rude shock when military officers announced on Wednesday that they were taking “total control of the country, suspending its electoral process and closing its borders.”
The current President of the country Umaro Embalo, who is contesting in the presidential race, and the opposition candidate, Fernando Dias, also a frontrunner in the election, had both declared separate victories before the coup.
General Denis N’Canha, Head of the Presidential Military Office, later told members of the press that a command “composed of all branches of the armed forces, was taking over the leadership of the country until further notice”.
N’Canha who claimed to have discovered a plan to destabilise the country, including “the introduction of weapons into the country to alter the constitutional order”, stated that the entire electoral process had been halted, all media programming suspended, and a mandatory curfew imposed.
The military further named the Chief of Staff of the army, General Horta N’Tam, as the country’s new leader for one year, a day after the coup.
