Martin Amidu’s thoughts on the Guinea-Bissau coup with a friend

Thank you for emailing me the ECOWAS Communique on the Guinea-Bissau Coup dated 27 November 2025. I was going to tell you yesterday that if I were one of the coup makers in Bissau, I will not allow President Embalo to be evacuated from the country so that he can fight to return or set up a government in exile.

We will hold him hostage like Niger did and charge him later with corruption. I anticipated ECOWAS suspension, which could push Bissau to join the Alliance of Sahelian States. Luckily, Bissau has a coast to the sea, unlike Burkina, Mali, and Niger.

The only reasonable thing ECOWAS has said in the Communique is paragraph 10. which states that: "10. The MSC calls on the leaders of the coup to guarantee the safety and facilitate the evacuation and safe passage of ECOWAS and all other International election observers." Where was ECOWAS when Bissau was being oppressed by the President and his government? It had been going on for far too long. I do not support military coups because, in the end, they answer to Vilfredo Pareto's theory of social change like we have arrived at in Ghana today after emerging from the 31 December Revolution. But coups give a temporary chance for respite, rebirth, and regeneration from oppression until the cycle can begin again with the African brand of corrupt democracy.

People did not understand why Jerry Rawlings was alert and criticizing Kufuor's regime, and later Mills and Mahama. It was not that he hated Kufuor or Mills, or Mahama. He was afraid of the circulation of elite theory leading to another coup in which he could be collateral damage like Afrifa and others during 4 June 1979. He used to tell me that: "Chief! My neck is on the block" and my response was: "I understand, Sir."

Ghanaian youth don't know how hard we fought to survive several coups between 1982 and 7 January 1993. John Ndebugri and I did everything to protect our northern border as PNDC Secretary and Deputy Secretary for Upper East, which is how we introduced the Burkinabes to the PNDC in May 1983. We brought both Captains Blaise and Thomas to the Castle, even when the latter was still under house arrest. The Castle had not met them before we introduced them. Where is Captain P. K. Ansah? Most of our comrades in that operation are dead now. Yahaya and Chireh, the two other PNDC Secretaries in North at the time, know how we contributed to stability. The rest is history! Look at what happened to my bosom friend Blaise's constitutional government in the end?

Ghana has lessons to learn from Bissau's impunity. Nana Akufo-Addo got away with it. I was hoping that John Mahama would be father for all and concentrate on reforms and development. Unfortunately, Pareto's theory of the circulation of elites is being proved right again. There are too many Lions in the government while the Foxes are ignored in the NDC itself.

The Speaker Bagbin is presiding over the abuse of supermajority power instead of being magnanimous in victory. Obnoxious laws will soon be passed by the government using the supermajority. Our national metals will soon be signed away to Central Europe metal entrepreneurs working with local partners on grounds of international relations and diplomacy, with parliamentary approval. Look at the lithium! African Parliamentarians think about returning to Parliament to eat from the public purse and benefits, and not democracy: and so do governments, no matter the methods used to achieve that end. It is all about elite corruption from one government to another and one parliament to another.

Domestic conflicts are seen by the political elite as a means of returning to power. Bawku gave six constituencies and massive votes to the NDC and its presidential candidate, hoping for peace. I suspect more people have died there since 7 January 2025 than under the eight years of Akufo-Addo's NPP regime without an end in sight. As long as the killings continue there, the MPs have brighter chances of returning to parliament.

It is part of the political economy of conflict. The displaced people of Gbenyiri and its surroundings are still in domestic exile or across the international borders without resources to appease the "gods' so they can return home. They are called settlers in their own country under the 1992 Constitution, but those us who own big houses and made enormous wealth in Accra who are not Gas are citizens of Ghana, not settlers.

Gbenyiri is Bawku in the making under John Mahama's nose, and he is not removing the speck in his own eyes. Weaponizing the security agencies and the military to conduct unlawful swoops on your own mass of innocent youthful citizens is dangerous in any democracy, particularly when you have chieftaincy and other conflicts all around your country.

The emerging sycophancy from a partisan elite looking for their turn to eat is blinding or deluding President Mahama. I want him to see the reality and stabilize Ghana for a better future, that is why I write often about national events. After supporting him at the elections, I have a duty as a foundation member of the NDC to tell him the truth and not what he wishes to hear which appears to be his major deficiency.

The whole of ECOWAS and indeed, Africa, needs to wake up to the reality of the times and the intelligence of the youth, many of whom are unemployed, but discerning. I keep on praying for Ghana and Africa. We failed in our time to take Ghana to the promised land and rather led it to where we are. Africa must learn lessons from each country's military and democratic failings. I dropped history in second year at Legon to read law, but I see those with history degrees ignoring the lessons of history. Maybe, with time they have forgotten the history they learned, or it was learnt to pass exams. May peace and reason return to Bissau. I am praying for your safe return. Stay well and blessed.