Alpha Condé has just lost a new battle against the junta of Mamadi Doumbouya which chased him nineteen months ago from the Sékhoutouréya palace, seat of the Guinean presidency which he occupied from 2010 to 2021. A funeral fight whose At stake was the organization of the funeral of his former wife, Hadja Djéné Kaba, born in 1960 and who died of an illness on April 8 at the American hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Contrary to the wishes of the deposed president who fought for a “private and family” ceremony, this one will be surrounded with all the honors. A staging with a bitter taste for Alpha Condé. It is ostensibly organized by the power which deposed it in the early morning of September 5, 2021. The one who then let the lackluster images of a fallen head of state in jeans, open shirt and t-shirt broadcast. , sprawled on a sofa, looking haggard, before taking him by car to the “100% anti-Alpha” neighborhood of Bambéto in Conakry.
“All arrangements are made to pay tribute to Hadja Djéné both in Conakry and to accompany the body to Kankan [her hometown in the east of the country] before her burial, she will be entitled to all the honors due in its rank, “explained, Thursday, April 13, Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, the government spokesman.
Alpha Condé will not be there. He has been chomping at the bit since May 2021 in Istanbul, where this 85-year-old man is recovering after two operations in Abu Dhabi. “He is doing very well”, slips one of his relatives. Alpha Condé wanted “his wife’s coffin to first go through Turkey, to collect one last time on the body”, explains our source. Before this one takes the direction of Guinea, without him.
“Power managed to recover the ceremony”
“Of course, it is out of the question for the president to go [to Conakry]”, adds this relative. “Alpha Condé demands a return to constitutional order before returning to Guinea,” said one of his former ministers. “He considers that having been dismissed neither by the street nor by the ballot box, but by a handful of seditious soldiers, the return to constitutional order implies that he completes his mandate”, adds this source.
This third term, which had been strongly contested by demonstrators, was due to end in 2026. A scenario that the former president, prosecuted in Conakry for “corruption, illicit enrichment, money laundering” during his presidency, is hardly able to impose in the face of a military junta which does not intend to return power to civilians before December 2024.
The putsch has indeed concluded months of popular demonstrations, repressed in blood, initially organized to try to prevent him from modifying the Constitution as he wishes to run for this new mandate. Going beyond, Alpha Condé had been re-elected in the first round in October 2020. The discontent was still rising. Until the military took matters into their own hands a year later, in their own way.
Mamadi Doumbouya saw – in the death of the former first lady, who had distanced herself from her husband long before the coup and was living in Paris – the opportunity to press a little more on the head of Alpha Conde. “Power has managed to recover the ceremony,” says one of his confidants. “Activists of the RPG [Rally of the People of Guinea, his political party] will boycott the ceremony, unless the president advises otherwise,” warns Karamo Nabé, the RPG’s Europe manager.
The angry voice of Alpha Condé
“All these maneuvers combine to further humiliate and challenge President Alpha Condé,” he laments. “The lifting of the body took place yesterday [Thursday] at the great mosque of Saint-Ouen, it is on its way to Conakry, the Guinean authorities have taken control”, added Karamo Nabé, Friday April 14 at midday.
Conakry has found an ally in the person of Gnalen Kaba, the eldest daughter of the former first lady. Born from a first marriage, it was she who was legally able to organize the removal of the body from French territory. The marital union between Alpha Condé and Hadja Djéné Kaba had apparently been celebrated only religiously and not civilly. In the eyes of the French administration, he could not therefore override the authority of his daughter-in-law, designated “trustworthy person” by the deceased.
The former president angry with Paris before his fall sees it as a twisted blow from France. In an audio recording that has gone viral on social networks, we clearly recognize the angry voice of Alpha Condé trying, on the phone, to convince his daughter-in-law.
“It will be a scandal (…) because all of Africa will be aware that the Elysée has intervened. What does the Elysée have to do in Guinean affairs? The Guinea of ??Sékou Touré [father of Guinean independence, dictator president from 1958 to his death in 1984] who said no to France. Everywhere today, we are chasing France. How will Guinea, which said “no”, find itself in this. The Elysée is involved in sending the body. Gnalen Kaba firmly denied any interference by France, which, beaten cold by the Malian and Burkinabe juntas, maintains dispassionate relations with that of Conakry. Contacted, the Elysee Palace said it had not intervened in any way.
