Alpha and Omega

In the kick off of Season two of AIAC Talk, Will Shoki and Sean Jacobs speak with Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui, a professor of international relations theory and law at Cornell University on the recent coup in the West African nation of Guinea-Conakry. On 5 September 2021, the country's first democratically-elected president, Alpha Condé, was deposed in a coup led by the country’s armed forces. When elected in 2010, the man once affectionately known as “Le Professeur” promised to undo the pattern of political violence that had long destabilized the country, as well as to deliver basic services and development to all. However, after successfully changing the constitution to allow him a run for a third term (and winning it in a disputed election in October 2020), the signs of creeping despotism were clearer than ever. In Africa Is a Country last April, Grovogui wrote that “Guinea, more than ever, needs an inclusive debate not only on the function of the state, but also on the nature of our institutions and therefore the very state of the republic." The debate is all the more necessary now, and on this episode, we hope to unpack the roots of Guinea’s political crisis, as well as to ask: what comes next?