Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is currently trapped in Guinea‑Bissau after a group of soldiers sacked the country’s leader, President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, through a successful coup-de-tat on Wednesday’s afternoon.
Jonathan had traveled to Bissau as head of the West African Elders Forum election‑observer mission for the November 23 presidential and parliamentary polls.
According to his former spokesman, Ima Niboro, Jonathan is holed up in Guinea‑Bissau.
Jonathan and hundreds of foreign observers have not been able to leave the francophone country where elections had taken place and results were about to be officially declared.
It was learnt that a good number of foreign observers had rushed to the airport in a bid to depart the country after the coup was announced but got stranded.
The coup leaders claimed “total control” of the country on Wednesday, a day after two leading candidates – President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Fernando Dias – each declared victory in the country’s election even though the electoral commission had not released official results.
Calling themselves the “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order”, the officers ordered the immediate suspension of the electoral process “until further notice”
They also ordered the closure of all land, air and sea borders and an overnight curfew.
“I have been deposed,” Embalo told French broadcaster France24 in a phone call, adding that he was “currently at the general staff headquarters.”
The head of the main opposition PAIGC party, Domingos Simoes Pereira, has also been arrested, Haque said.
