Was Deby, Chadian President, Assassinated?

 President Idriss Deby of Chad is dead.

Army spokesman, General Azem Bermandoa Agouna, in statement broadcast on state television, said Mr Deby died of injuries he sustained on the frontline while visiting Chadian soldiers waging a bitter war against rebel fighters in the north.   

President Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” General Agouna said in the statement.

Mr. Deby, 68, won the April 11 presidential election to serve his 6th term as Chadian president.  He scored 79.3 percent of the total votes cast to emerge winner.

Reports say he postponed his victory speech to visit the soldiers engaged in a fierce battle with the rebels, where he sustained the injuries that led to his death.

Aljazeera reports that “the rebel group, Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south.”

Mr Deby was one of the sit-tight rulers that used state powers and resources to manipulate elections to keep themselves perpetually in power against the will of the majority.

Despite the announcement by the Chadian Military that Deby died as a result of the wounds he sustained after "clashes with rebels", analysts see his death as strange and suspicious. It is feared that he may have been assassinated.

Some of his commanders wishing to ease him out "less messily" may have advised him to visit to the battlefield where his elimination was undertaken and then blamed on rebel bullets, analysts maintain.

It is highly suspected that since it has become difficult to remove him through the ballot, he was lured to the frontline to be fatally removed. 

But whether his death will cause democratic practice to flourish in the country remains to be seen.

General Agouna had said in his statement that a military council led by Deby’s 37-year-old son, Mahamat Idriss Deby, a four-star General, would take over and rule for the next 18 months. Then, "free and democratic" elections will be held at the end of this "transition period". 

But the Chadian constitution holds that in the event of the sudden death of the president,  the Speaker of the parliament would take over the running of the country for 40 days during which a fresh election would be held to usher in another democratically elected leader.

*President Deby with Chadian soldiers at the battle front 

The military has, however, announced the dissolution of the country's legislative assembly and suspension of the constitution. The country would, instead, be governed by some military decrees. 

Deby was known to personally lead his soldiers in critical battles. When the Boko Haram terrorists infiltrated Chad some months ago and killed Chadian soldiers in an ambush, the late president personally led his troop in a battle that saw many of the terrorists' fighters killed.

After only a few weeks of fighting, he announced that Boko Haram had been totally flushed out of Chad. 

Some Nigerian territories in the hands of the terrorists were recovered by the Chadian soldiers under his command.

Following the president's death a curfew has been imposed in the country while the borders will remain closed.

These measures are fueling fears that what just happened in Chad was nothing short of a military coup. 

There are also suspicions that the military may want to keep power instead of handing over to a democratically elected government as it has promised.   

Idriss Deby was in power for 30 years.