By Joy Essien, Contributing Editor, Lagos Metropolitan.
African leaders and their obsession with power. They never fail to disappoint. They get into office and do everything to remain there even when their time is up and they should vacate the seat for another. This script has overplayed itself one too many, it’s beginning to look like there’s a special manual or playbook they all read from when they get into office.
Isn’t it shameful that an election was held and the 2 candidates both declared themselves winners? Isn’t it the duty of the electoral body to declare the winner? How does it work that both candidates declared themselves winners when there can only be one winner?
Africa, my Africa. My mom would say, "Stranger than fiction." Except that this in all it’s absurdity is much more than strange.
President Embaló wanted to make history as the country’s only president to secure a second consecutive mandate in the last 30 years.
He had initially said he would not seek a second term. Prior to the delayed polls, his legitimacy had been questioned, with the opposition saying his term should have officially ended in February 2025.
The military had to swing into action and immediately take control of the situation amidst gunshots and unrest. They ousted President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in this latest episode of unrest in the coup-prone country. Coup-prone because the former Portuguese colony has witnessed at least 9 coups or attempted coups over the last 50 years. In Nigerian local parlance, we’d say, "wahala nor dey finish." Shaking my head. General Denis N’Canha, head of the military household at the presidential palace, read out a statement declaring a takeover.
He said officers had formed "the High Military Command for the Restoration of Order" and instructed the population to "remain calm".
The takeover announcment came shortly after sustained gunfire was heard near the election commission’s headquarters, the presidential palace and the Ministry of the Interior in the capital, Bissau on Wednesday 26th November, 2025.
“I have just been sworn in to lead the High Command,” General Horta Nta Na Man declared after taking the oath of office in a ceremony at the military’s headquarters on Thursday, 27th November 2025.
On Thursday, the capital Bissau was mostly quiet, with soldiers on the streets and many residents staying indoors even after the overnight curfew was lifted.
Businesses and banks remain closed.
The military had also ordered the closure of all land, air and sea borders.
Portugal has called for a return to constitutional order, with its foreign ministry urging "all those involved to refrain from any act of institutional or civic violence".
Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world with a population of more than two million people.
Its coastline has many uninhabited islands, making it ideal for drug traffickers – with the UN dubbing it a "narco-state" as it has been a key transit point for cocaine coming from Latin America to Europe.
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is said to be trapped in Guinea Bissau after the coup while the federal government seeks to get him out safely back to Nigeria.
