 Welcome back, you're still watching news now on PLOS TV Africa. The fate of Guinness President Alpha Konde is unclear after an unverified video showed him in the hands of soldiers who announced that they had seized power. The commander of the elite special forces appeared on national TV claiming to have dissolved the government. Hello countrymen, the social and economic situation of the country, the dysfunction of the republic's institutions, the instrumentalization of the justice system, the disregard of the people's rights, the disrespect of the democratic values, the constant politicization of the public administration, poverty and endemic corruption has led Guinness Republican Army through the National Committee for Rally and Development to take responsibility towards the people of Guinea. We have decided, after taking the president who is now with us to dissolve the current constitution and the institutions, we also decided to dissolve the government to close the land and air borders. We call on our brothers in arms to unite in order to respond to the legitimate aspirations of the people of Guinea. We also invite everyone to stay in their basis and continue their usual activities. We will not make the same mistakes as in the past. The defense ministries, however, claiming the attempted takeover had been thwarted by the presidential guard. We have two gentlemen joining us tonight to examine the situation in Guinea. International Affairs expert Paul Ijume is joining us from the United Kingdom. Hello, Mr. Ijume. Yeah, thank you. Maureen, actually, I'm in Abuja. Oh, you're back home. Welcome back. Yeah. Thank you very much. Mosevoli is an activist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Good evening, Mr. Mosevali. Good evening. Thanks for having me. All right. Ijume, I will start with you. What is your take on this apparent takeover of government in Guinea? So, it was expected, so to say, because President Conde, I think, laid this foundation for himself. He did this on himself. If you remember, he is an 83-year-old man, and last year, he did everything to push through a constitutional amendment, even when that brought violence and deaths of innocent people in Mali. But he pushed through and had an election that was made by violence in October. And so, now, Chukova, he got re-elected, so it was with about, what is it, almost 60 percent or there about. But this, the atmosphere, the environment was already polluted because that constitutional amendment was unpopular. It was controversial, and it was rejected by the opposition and many people, but it went ahead. And this is part of the problem that we have in Africa. Now, everybody is blaming the military. And then, for all you can say, well, the military has no business in political governance. But when politicians make, you know, provide the environment for them to do this, what they are doing now. Look at Mali, look at Chad, and then Niger just escaped. But you will also, what is it called, the Gambia is always tilting towards all of them. And this is now being seen as a regression of democracy, when democracy is supposed to be consolidated, Africa and West Africa in particular, are now moving backwards. Which is, you know, really a sad, it's a sad day for us. You know, the spokesperson of the Special Forces mentioned disrespect of democratic rules, which is what you're talking about. He mentioned poverty and endemic corruption as reasons for the takeover. Why is Africa, or why do you think Africans seem to enjoy disrespecting democratic rule? Why do we have men who do not respect the time that you're supposed to be in office? Well, so we call it corruption. But others will also call it greed and then wickedness, because that is what it is. When somebody has that in mind of amassing something to the point that what you do not need, because that is what, how much does a man need a woman to survive? You sleep on one bed, you ride one car, you, I mean, what is it, how much, what do you eat? But these people are greedy. I think it's the greed and then the kind of self-servant, they are not serving the people, they believe they are masters, and that is what has, by the way, Guinea is not zero poor. Guinea has gold, it has diamond, it has bauxite, it has iron ore. But that is not impacting positively on the, you know, 13 million or so of the people. Instead, the political class in collaboration with the foreign, you know, you have mining companies. They are the ones enjoying, you know, all this at the expense of the people. Okay, Mr. Jume, I'll come back to that question, because it is a worrisome trend, you know, on the continent. Is it something about the black man? But we'll come back to that. I need to get back to Kambali Mosevuli. Hello, Mr. Mosevuli, I'm coming to you now. What do you know about, let me know, Conor, Mamadi Dumboya, who announced the takeover? Mamadi Dumboya is a former French soldier from the legionnaire, forces from France. He returned to Guinea in 2018 as part of, I guess, the regional plan, mainly a French plan for addressing terrorism in the region. As he arrived, he was given a battalion that he has controlled, we French training and US training. Actually, their troops have taken training in Burkina Faso with Africa, the US African command, riding in Burkina Faso as they operated at different tactics and actions to go after the so-called Jihadists in the region. So we know that he's a very well-trained soldier. We know that his battalion has been given particular support, many from France and the United States. And what I found is actually very disturbing is how his unit has operated for the past three years now, almost outside of the control of the Ministry of Defense. How do you mean by that? It's a special force, it's a commando force, particularly working with the presidency and also some of the French operation in G5 Sahel, operation for France. So that's how they've been operating. The first thing that when the coup happened, the first question that many analysts asked was, who are the soldiers, who is behind it? We don't know yet who is behind it, but we can speculate. What do you speculate? Who do you speculate? We have seen in the region, many coups, they have taken place with soldiers trained by Western powers. The coup in Mali, the soldier who was there was trained by the United States. He was actually in the same training with Mamadi Nuboya in the U.S. military training. They were actually classmates during that training. We've seen the same thing in our chat, right? The soldiers who are committing the coups have received some form of military training on the outside. Is that direct implication of foreign powers there? That's to be seen and direct? Yes, we can argue that Western nations are training soldiers who are ending up not bringing stability to countries, but actually bringing stability. One thing that I think that we are missing beyond, I think Mr. Ejime just pointed it out. We can look at the coup in a vacuum. He pointed out clearly that Guinea is a strategic country in the Ekoas region. He's pointed out the wealth of the country, particularly the iron, the box site, the gold and the diamond. This year, there was an Israeli businessman, Benny Steimans, who was trained in Europe for a shady deal in Guinea. We know that there is a Chinese deal around the Arab and infrastructure deal that exists. So I'm not looking at this coup just from what is happening. Yes, the Indian people are in the street. A part of the Indian people are in the street right now celebrating what has unfolded. We as Africans have to be very cautious. If there was no revolutionary process to bring change of stability into a country, we know that in the end, it's not going to bring revolutionary change in the specific area. So we must be careful around it. Talking about Africans being careful, from your speculation, you believe that the Western powers are up to something very fishy against Africa. The question is, why are Africans unable to see through this and take the right steps? No, Africans are. The Ginean people did. The last election, the Ginean people showed what they wanted. They voted for a leader. The result did not reflect their elections. They were imposed a leader. But what actually unfolded? There was a rigged election. First, there was a change of the constitution in Guinea that allowed the current president of Africa to stay more than two terms. And this election, this past election was rigged. But who certified the elections? ECOWAS countries recognized that. So we're talking about the prisoners of Ghana, Lana Kufuado. We're talking about Watara. Like ECOWAS came out, African Union came out to recognize that. So it's kind of dubious now to hear the same institution, for example, so a statement that just came out from the African Union are condemning the coup. They didn't condemn the rigged election last year. So we know that the Ginean people are clear about what they want. We know that they're streamed to the international community, to Africa, and they're saying that we want a proper leadership. They were not listened to. But the new colonial agents of the West, of imperial powers, of multinationals are the one ruling our countries, unfortunately. OK, a question to both of you, because we do not have enough time to continue with this. Where do you see this ending, especially with ECOWAS seemingly weakened by what is going on as individual countries fight homegrown terror groups? Yes, there are two layers to it. The national, that's domestic, and then the board comes out of the interference and then in position of former colonial powers and imperialists. Those are the issue, but you will ask after 50 years of independence, why has Africans, where would Africans now be complaining about it? Because they have taken over and then they should now do what is right. They should look at the other people from the nation and other places and see how they govern their people, but not to amass wealth and then connive with foreigners and the expense to most of their own people and then create an environment that is so poisoned that there will be no governance. Because what you are saying now is that the typical, the Ghanian, just like the Malian, the Nigerian citizen and across West Africa and even Africa say, they have not seen what you call the dividend of democracy and that is why they are now, what we are now seeing, and this is dangerous that if they are not coming to, they will tell you they have come to save the nation, but they have never done a good job. That was why during the period of multi-party democracy, they were taken to the barracks. But look at what is happening now, they are coming back to show that the politicians have messed up big time. They need, like he said, echo us, AIU. You cannot go and be robust stamping elections that have been rigged. That is the issue. You cannot, you said now you are condemning the coup. Why did, what happened when you saw this coming? If you make a peaceful change impossible, you are causing a violent change. That is a very strong place for you to just hold your thought. I think a good place for Moussa Voulis to come in. Moussa Voulis, how do you see this ending? With the echo as seeming to be incapacitated, so to speak. Yes, I mean, Koame Krumah said it best at the independence of Ghana. He said that the independence of Ghana would be meaningless if it is not tied to the total liberation of the African continent. And I am taking that to even explain the historical context on Guinea. Koame Krumah, Sekuture and Modigo Keita had a union that they created that allowed us to even think and dream of what the African union was. They understood that we needed to work together as a nation. Their plan of a free and liberated Africa is still ongoing. Today we are talking about Guinea. Tomorrow we may talk about Congo. And after tomorrow we may talk about the situation in Nigeria Delta, particularly Nigeria. Those issues that's happening across the African continent is continuing to telling us, is telling us that the African people today are not okay with the political class. They want to have a say in the decision making process. They want to have leaders pretty much showing the interests of the people. They want the resources of the land to benefit the people so that the gold, the diamond, the both sides, the iron benefit actually the people, not the small elite. And because of that they are rising up. In their rise, given that the small elite continue to support the imperialists, it's up to the African people to say it loud. For Guinea to be free, we need Pan-Africanism. For Congo to be free, we need Pan-Africanism. And that unity of Pan-Africanism, the people, is what's going to bring freedom to the Guinea and people, to the Nigerian people and to the African people at large. The unity of the Pan-African people. Thank you so much. Kambali Mosevali, he's an activist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Thank you so much. International Affairs S-Part, Paul Ijime, also joined us from Abuja. Thank you gentlemen for your time. Thank you for having us. Thank you, thank you. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.