By: Seringe ST Touray
Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, the interim president of Guinea following the 2021 coup, stated that recent coups in Africa are military attempts to rectify presidents’ unfulfilled promises.
He criticized the West for interfering in the affairs of the continent with over 1 billion people. Doumbouya emphasized that addressing the root causes of coups is crucial, as the real culprits are leaders who manipulate constitutions to remain in power indefinitely.
“The putschist is not only the person who takes up arms to overthrow a regime,” he told world leaders in New York. “I want us all to be well aware of the fact that the real putschists, the most numerous, are those who avoid any condemnation – they are those … who cheat to manipulate the text of the constitution in order to stay in power eternally.”
He highlighted the concerning trend of coups in West and Central Africa since 2020, which has raised stability concerns in a region with a rapidly growing population. Doumbouya rejected Western intervention and called for Africans to assert control over their destiny.
“We Africans are insulted by the boxes, the categories which sometimes place us under the influence of the Americans, sometimes under that of the British, the French, the Chinese and the Turks,” the Guinean leader said. “Today, the African people are more awake than ever and more than ever determined to take their destiny into their own hands.”
