The West African Elders Forum (WAEF) has described the military takeover in Burkina Faso as a “political sacrilege”.
The forum in a statement issued by their convener who’s also the former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, said the action is condemnable stressing that the military shouldn’t be an alternative to civilian rule.
WAEF also called for the immediate release the deposed President, Roch Kabore and others being held captive by the mutinous soldiers.
The statement reads:
“The West African Elders Forum (WAEF), condemns the military takeover of government and suspension of constitutional order in Burkina Faso by a group military officers.
“The coup is a political sacrilege that betrays hope, as it rewinds the clock of democratic progress and successes recorded in Burkina Faso and the sub-region, in the past decades.
“As a Forum, we are disturbed by the gradual ceding of our civil and democratic spaces to military adventurers and unelected leaders. This unfortunate trend is embarrassing to our sub-region and the entire continent. The military are trained to protect the state and its sovereignty and not to deploy their guns to overthrow elected civil authorities.
“We state without equivocation that the military should not be seen as the alternative to civil rule. Africa had experienced a long spell of military rule in the past and the people of the continent cannot afford to be returned to an inglorious era when the people’s rights, freedoms and development impetus were restricted.
“We condemn this political aberration in our sub-region and stress that it is unacceptable. We encourage all stakeholders to work in unity in order to safeguard our democracy as well as deliver peace, justice and good governance to our people.
“We call for the immediate release of deposed President Roch Kabore and all others being detained and urge the military leaders to return the country to constitutional rule.”
