Ex-Senegalese president offers to host Guinea’s deposed leader

By James Tasamba

KIGALI, Rwanda (AA) - Former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade offered Wednesday to host Guinea’s deposed leader Alpha Conde at his villa in the capital Dakar.

In a statement to the media issued by his Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), Wade said he believed Senegal’s current President Macky Sall “will not mind.”

“If you wish, at one time or another, for a temporary retreat to think, I put at your disposal the house that I currently occupy in Dakar,” he said.

The house is reportedly located on the seaside of Dakar, an hour from Guinea's capital Conakry.

The statement indicated that Wade, who ruled the West African country between 2000 and 2012, would soon be moving out of the villa to return to his family home, which is under renovation.

Conde, who was ousted on Sept. 5 by the military led Col. Mamadi Doumbouya, is still detained and there was no immediate reaction from the military junta in Guinea and the Senegalese presidency.

The statement did not refer to the release of Conde.

PDS spokesman Tafsir Thioye in the same statement said Wade’s comments were in view of the fact that "for having been at the heart of all Guinean crises, since the departure of [Guinea’s first president] Sekou Toure, at the call of each of the regimes, military or civilian, master Abdoulaye Wade was expected to attend to the current situation in Guinea.”​​​​​​​

Wade was defeated in the 2012 presidential election while running for a third term.

The regional bloc the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has demanded the unconditional release of Conde.

But on Sept. 17, the junta ruled out the possibility of him going into exile, saying he “is and will remain in Guinea.”

The 83-year-old became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015.

Last year, he pushed through constitutional changes that allowed him to run for a controversial third term, which he won in an election dismissed as a sham by the opposition.

Following the vote, mass demonstrations erupted in which dozens of protesters were reportedly killed.