More revelations have emerged on how former President Goodluck Jonathan was abandoned in Guinea-Bissau by the federal government following the military coup in that tiny West African nation.
The magazine reported that Jonathan retuned back to the country yesterday days after the military putsch in that country on Tuesday.
The former Nigerian leader was among some mediators sent to the country by the Economic Community of West Africa, ECOWAS for meditation before the coup that ousted President Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embaló early this week.
The magazine reported that following the ouster of Embalo, the coup plotters have since appointed the country Military Chief of Staff, as its new leader.
Following the coup detat on Tuesday, Jonathan was reported to have been stranded in the country , with calls back home in Nigeria on the federal government to immediately bring him back home.
But according to Thisday newspapers, the Nigerian government did not make concrete efforts to airlift him back to Nigeria, and did not make a direct contact with the former Nigerian leader, except for some calls to his aides by some low level government officials.
According to the report, it was President Alassane Ouattara of Cote Devore that ordered the use of his Presidential jet to fly Jonathan back to the country following the lackadaisical attitude of the Tinubu administration, which critics of the government said has the responsibility to act on the issue because of the status of Jonathan as a former Nigerian President.
The online newspaper claimed that while Abidjan acted with urgency to protect a visiting African leader, Abuja appeared flat-footed, offering little visible coordination or assertive diplomatic engagement despite Jonathan’s status as a former head of state and an envoy of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
THISDAY learnt yesterday that the Ivorian government had already made arrangements to fly Jonathan using the country’s presidential jet, with some aides of President Bola Tinubu, getting in touch with a Jonathan aide in Abuja, rather than official communication from the highest level of the Nigerian government.
“It was the Côte d’Ivoire government that reached out to President Jonathan and they have provided an aircraft that’s bringing him back,” a source who preferred anonymity told THISDAY yesterday.
However, it was learnt that although the Nigerian government later reached out, the Ivorian government had already reached out to the former President and had already concluded arrangements to return him to Nigeria.
It was also confirmed last night that contrary to reports that it was the soldiers who carried out the coup that escorted the former Nigerian President out of the country, they were not actually involved in the movement of Jonathan and his sides.
Rather, it was learnt that ECOMOG forces, comprising soldiers from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegalese soldiers, gave the former Nigerian President security from his hotel to the airport. “You will see that it was a presidential jet with the Republic of Cote d’ Ivoire mark”, the source stated.
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