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Despite being ousted in a military coup last week, Guinea’s deposed president Alpha Conde has defiantly declared that he will not be resigning.
According to local media in Guinea, Conde told an ECOWAS delegation that “I would rather be killed than sign my resignation.”
Conde was deposed in a coup that was led by Lieutenant Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, a former French legionnaire and an elite military unit commander. The former leader of an elite special forces unit in the military said the country’s current constitution, as well as the national assembly, are being dissolved in the best interests of Guinea’s over 12.7 million people.
Following the coup which was widely condemned, regional body ECOWAS dispatched a delegation to look into the crisis. The ECOWAS mission, made up of Foreign Ministers Robert Dussey (Togo), Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey (Ghana), Alpha Barry (Burkina) and de Jean Claude Brou, the chairman of the organizing committee, was allowed to meet with Conde.
According to the publication Jeune Afrique, Alpha Conde is still detained at the headquarters of the special forces, located not far from the People’s Palace, the seat of the National Assembly.
Conde reportedly has a bedroom, a living room and a bathroom, but has no access to his phones or the radio.
The television, which he was able to watch for a time, was taken away from him because, according to his guards, “he gets angry every time he sees Lieutenant-Colonel Doumbouya on the screen and this affects his state of health,” as per Jeune Afrique.
During his meeting with the ECOWAS delegation on 10 September, the former Guinean president said it is out of the question for him to sign a letter of resignation.
“I’d rather be killed than sign my resignation,” he said.
Condé won a controversial third term in October after changing the constitution to allow him to stand again despite violent protests from the opposition, raising concerns of a to backslide in a region that has seen coups in Mali and Chad in recent months.
