The Nigerian government has granted asylum to Guinea-Bissau opposition candidate Fernando Dias da Costa, days after a military takeover led to a regime change in the West African nation.
Dias was the main contender to the sitting President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who was seeking a second term as President and has now left the country following the coup.
The military intervention which prevented the results of the recent presidential election held in the country from being announced, was led by a military group which identified itself as “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order”, culminating in the appointment of General Horta N’Tam, as the country’s new leader for a year.
Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said that 47-year-old Dias, who ran as a candidate for the Party for Social Renewal, was under special protection at the Nigerian embassy, as a result of “threats made against” him.
Both Embaló and Dias had claimed separate victories in the November 23 election before the coup.
While a delegation from ECOWAS has been in the country, urging the military to step aside and release the results of the election, the new regime has tightened restrictions in the country and placed ban on all demonstrations and “disturbing actions of peace and stability in the country”.
Dias who said he escaped from his campaign headquarters on the day of the coup as armed men came to arrest him, is now taking shelter inside the Nigerian embassy in Bissau.
“The decision to accommodate Mr da Costa in the Nigerian premises underscores our firm commitment to safeguarding the democratic aspirations and the sovereign will of the good people of Guinea-Bissau,” Tuggar said in a letter to ECOWAS Commission President Alieu Omar Touray.
Tugar said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu had agreed to give Dias protection while also requesting the deployment of soldiers from an ECOWAS unit in the country to the Nigerian embassy to ensure Dias’s safety.
While the true motives behind the coup in Guinea-Bissau remain unclear, Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko and Nigeria’s ex-President Goodluck Jonathan have both insinuated that the coup was staged, alongside civil society groups who accused Embaló of masterminding the coup against himself, in order to prevent the declaration of the election results.
According to reports, 53-year-old Embalo has now moved to Congo-Brazzaville after leaving earlier for neighbouring Senegal.