Some people just look the part. Take Colonel Doumbouya – he presents as an imposing larger-than-life leader, towering over his subordinates complete with military uniform and wraparound sunglasses. Stick on the medals and the jaunty red beret and who else would you want to lead a coup to overthrow an unpopular civilian government? That is just what the good colonel did in Guinea last September, when he deposed the government in Conakry. The former French legionnaire then had himself appointed ‘interim’ President on 1 October 2021. The loser here was 83-year-old Alpha Conde, who had just engineered a controversial referendum to overturn a constitutional two-term limit in the top seat.
Doumbouya, 41, is one of the younger military officers left out of the feeding frenzy enjoyed by the old school Guinean political elite who have been cashing in on the West African country’s mineral bounty – including large quantities of bauxite, iron, gold and diamonds. Their main partner has been China, which took the unusual step of breaching its usual ‘non-interference’ policy to condemn the coup. Guinea is a classic case of Africa’s ‘resources curse’; despite its obvious natural riches more than 40 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.
