Nigeria offers protection to Guinea-Bissau opposition candidate Dias

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BISSAU, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Nigeria has offered Guinea-Bissau’s opposition presidential candidate Fernando Dias protection at its embassy in the capital Bissau following a military coup, the Nigerian foreign ministry said on Monday.

The offer came as leaders from the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc, led by Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio, tried to persuade the military officers who seized power in Guinea-Bissau last week to stand down.

At a meeting on Monday during which tempers flared and voices were raised according to a Reuters witness, ECOWAS officials urged the soldiers to allow a proclamation of the results of the country’s disputed presidential election.

“ECOWAS … demands the restoration of constitutional order, as well as the continuation and logical conclusion of the electoral process,” Timothy Musa Kabba, Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, said after the meeting with the military leaders.

“As for Guinea-Bissau’s future, a decision will be taken during the (ECOWAS) conference of heads of state and government scheduled for December 14,” he said. ECOWAS has warned it could impose sanctions on Guinea-Bissau.

The interim president installed by military officers, Major-General Horta Inta-a, said the coup was necessary to ward off a plot by “narcotraffickers” to “capture Guinean democracy” and vowed to oversee a transition that would last one year, beginning immediately.

PROTECTION FOR DIAS

Dias, a 47-year-old relative political newcomer, has said he was on track to win the November 23 presidential election before the military coup in the small West African nation last week.

The opposition coalition backing Dias has denounced the coup as a desperate attempt by President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and his supporters to block the proclamation of election results that would have confirmed Embalo’s defeat.

In a statement dated November 30, Nigeria’s foreign ministry said that President Bola Tinubu had approved a request for protection of Dias in response to imminent threats to his life.

It also asked the ECOWAS stabilisation force to deploy its troops in the country to keep Dias safe.

Guinea-Bissau’s military rulers have banned protests and strikes as they tightened control on power.

The military government, which seized power in what some West African leaders have termed a “sham” coup, announced late on Sunday that all demonstrations, strikes and activities regarded as threats to peace and stability were prohibited.

The announcement followed protests in Bissau on Saturday where hundreds, primarily youths, demanded the release of detained opposition leaders and the publication of presidential election results.

The coup reflects a continued pattern of instability in Guinea-Bissau, a major cocaine transport hub with a long history of military interventions in politics.

(Reporting by Alberto Dabo; Additional reporting by Ben Ezeamalu in Lagos; writing by Bate Felix and Anait Miridzhanian; editing by Mark Heinrich)