Guinea-Bissau’s Lawless President Embalo Has No Business In Office

 By Owei Lakemfa

The military coup on Wednesday, November 26, 2025 that swept away President Umaro Sissoco Embaló did not come as a surprise. Embalo, a retired general who camouflaged as an elected President, was a lawless leader who consistently trampled the country’s constitution under his feet. He had a sense of entitlement and a culture  of impunity.

*General Horta Inta-A Na Man

In my February 9, 2024 column titled, ‘The civilian coups in Senegal, Guinea Bissau and ECOWAS ambivalence’, I  pointed out that: “There are civilian or constitutional coups in Guinea Bissau and Senegal, yet the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, is pretending otherwise. It appears interested only in military coups, not those carried out by its bosses in the Heads of State Summit.”

Trump’s Banquet For Africa’s Lilliputians

 By Adekeye Adebajo

The presidents of five West and Central African states – Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Liberia’s Joseph Boakai, Guinea-Bissau’s Umaro Cissoko Embaló, Mauritania’s Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, and Gabon’s Brice Oligui Nguema – recently visited United States (U.S.) president Donald Trump for a bizarre banquet in the White House.

*Trump with the five African leaders who he treated with disrespect ...

These five countries have limited trade with America and represent just 2.3 per cent of Africa’s population, with only Senegal having a population of more than six million people in a continent of 1.5 billion people and 55 nations. Though the presidents of Mauritania, Senegal, and Liberia were democratically elected, the Gabonese leader is a former military putschist who recently won  a controversial 90 per cent electoral victory, while the Bissau-Guinean leader has suspended his Parliament, clamped down harshly on dissent, and postponed elections.