By Paul Ejime
Africa seldom makes international news headlines unless wars (and they must be bloody), military coups, humanitarian catastrophes, disease pandemics, hunger, famine and pestilence are involved. With other parts of the world now seized by conflicts such as the U.S.-Israeli invasion of Iran, the Russia-Ukraine war and the Gaza killings and destruction, African tragedies must be monumental or extraordinary to attract world attention.
At least not a “narco-state” such as Guinea-Bissau, without resources to be exploited or of strategic importance to the competing foreign powers. Even when foreign powers intervene, the standard practice is for them to trigger or fuel the fire and then turn around to look for the extinguisher, sustaining the hypocritical theory of “shoot first and ask questions later” or “destruction first, then controlled reconstruction.”
Even so, the leadership crisis in Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, which is almost synonymous with instability, military coups and drug trafficking, must not be allowed to follow the ignominious pattern.
After former President Umaro Sissoko Embaló’s self-coup on 26 November 2025, to avoid an electoral defeat, Guinea-Bissau has remained under severe political tension, constituting a real and present danger not only to its 2.3 million people, but to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
To further compound the situation, ECOWAS, which has been baby-sitting Guinea-Bissau for years, is showing signs of fatigue, and rightly so, coupled with its struggle to maintain an existential balance after the withdrawal of three of its 15 member States – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – which have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES.
A new management at the ECOWAS Commission and other regional institutions, which assumed office on 1 September, is only settling down to the Herculean tasks ahead, including sorting out several controversial recruitment decisions it inherited from the Dr Omar Alieu Touray-led Commission.
There are also the perennial problems of terrorism, insurgency, widespread insecurity and economic hardships, exacerbated by high energy costs due to the Gulf crisis, and the tough engagement with the AES countries.
The Guinea-Bissau crisis has divided ECOWAS down the middle, with some leaders, including those of Senegal and Sierra Leone, supporting Embaló, while others would have preferred a hardline.
This has affected ECOWAS’ engagement with the Bissau junta regime, made up of several Embaló allies and loyalists now running the country, including his former Campaign director, now Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Ilidio Vieira Té, who is reportedly nursing presidential ambition, which puts him in confrontation with Embaló.
The junta led by General Horta N’Tam, another former associate of Embaló, has barred the former president from returning to Guinea-Bissau, citing security and public order concerns. Embaló has been living abroad since his self-coup.
Senegalese President Diomaye Faye sent a private plane to evacuate him from Bissau to Dakar after the coup, but he fled Dakar almost immediately following opposition by Ousmane Sonko, Senegal’s former Prime Minister and Faye’s ex-comrade-turned political foe.
Sustaining its “anti-Embaló” moves, the junta has sacked two Embaló associates from the government cabinet and disarmed his loyalists in the Guinea-Bissau army, putting them under surveillance or in detention.
Another shocking move by the military High Command is the postponement of the regime’s earlier scheduled presidential and legislative elections on 6 December, which it had touted as part of its 12-month transition to constitutional order.
ECOWAS has an estimated 500-strong Stabilisation Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau, ESSMGB. Unlike its initial tough response to the unconstitutional changes of governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, all ruled by the military (although ECOWAS later changed tack), the regional bloc has treated the junta in Guinea-Bissau with kid gloves, allowing it to carry on with a flawed transition programme.
President Faye and Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, in their capacities as the ECOWAS mediator of the Guinea-Bissau crisis and former Chair of ECOWAS Authority respectively, had been meeting with the Bissau junta or sending delegations to engage with it, without any tangible results.
Faye, who remains the mediator, succeeded Bio last July as Chair of ECOWAS Authority, while his compatriot, General Birame Diop, a former Military Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, is now the ECOWAS Commission’s president.
Embaló, before his November 2025 coup, had repeatedly violated ECOWAS protocols by illegally dissolving his country’s parliament twice within two years; suspended the constitution; and emasculated the Supreme Court and the national electoral commission.
Regional protocols and instruments have also been flagrantly violated by other ECOWAS leaders, including in Togo and Benin, where controversial constitutional reviews have led to power elongation, without any consequence or sanctions from ECOWAS.
In Guinea, recently, a coup leader organised a transition election and succeeded himself in clear violation of provisions of the 2001 ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, Article 1(c) on “Zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means,” which prohibits coup leaders from standing as candidates in transitional elections.
Following the military junta’s latest decisions, tension is mounting in Guinea-Bissau and the optics are ominous if not dangerous. Like Embaló’s regime before it, the junta is intolerant of opposition and has not permitted unfettered freedom or expression of human or civil rights.
It warned in a statement on 1 October that “restrictions on demonstrations, gatherings or political meetings remain in force.”
Responding to the latest developments, the Senegalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “any potential modification to the electoral calendar must be part of a consensual, inclusive, and transparent process… to prevent any technical adjustments from turning into an indefinite extension of the transitional period.”
The statement also called for the “lifting of restrictions on political and civil activities” for “…a climate of trust indispensable to (the elections’) credibility.”
For its part, ECOWAS “calls on the Transitional Authority to undertake wide consultations with national stakeholders on the electoral calendar in a transparent and inclusive manner …to preserve the necessary conditions for a peaceful, inclusive and transparent return to constitutional order.”
The unravelling situation in Guinea-Bissau, however, presents an opportunity for an ECOWAS-led international strategic and unbiased intervention to return the country to constitutional order; send a strong message to rogue political and military leaders that there is zero tolerance for unconstitutional changes of government, and that ECOWAS is ready to enforce its own rules.
It might be too early to conclude that the junta has totally weaned itself from Embaló’s control or whether the military is merely consolidating a power-grab or perpetuation plan. However, it is clear that Guinea-Bissau requires an urgent intervention to avert an avoidable catastrophe.
ECOWAS observers were among the international Observation Missions that witnessed Embaló’s contrived putsch, just before the national electoral commission was to announce the results of the 23 November 2025 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Some pro-democracy and civil society groups maintain that the results of the 2025 elections are valid and that funding constraints are among the reasons for the postponement of new elections since Embaló’s political machinations have effectively robbed Guinea-Bissau of international goodwill.
Also, Horta N’Tam is ruled out of running in any transition election. He could be prevailed upon to allow the electoral commission to announce the results of the November 2025 elections and hand power to the presidential claimant Fernando da Costa Dias under an ECOWAS-led international arrangement that ensures inclusive participation of Guinea-Bissau stakeholders.
To demonstrate its sincerity, the military should support this pro-Guinea-Bissau arrangement and allow a reasonable short period of three to six months for thorough constitutional, legal and security reforms to address key governance issues, including an amnesty for Gen. N’Tam and his colleagues, and enable the military to return to barracks.
This could be a win-win for all parties involved. Guinea-Bissau will exit conflict, avoid another costly election; Horta N’Tam and his colleagues could earn a place in history; Embaló and others with unbridled ambition would have been taught a political lesson, and more importantly, ECOWAS would have regained its disappearing glory and credibility.
The opportunity is there for the taking. The military Missions in Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia cost ECOWAS millions of dollars a day to maintain, with more than US$100 million owed to troop-contributing countries. These scarce resources could instead be channelled into impactful community projects to strengthen regional integration, which is ECOWAS’ raison d’être.
Paul Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst & Consultant on Strategic Governance Communications.
