Mamadi Doumbouya Threw Aliou Bah in Prison for Words

Twenty-three months. Almost two years in a cell for saying out loud what thousands of Guineans think. Aliou Bah, leader of the Mouvement démocratique libéral (MoDeL), was arrested in December 2024 and sentenced in January 2025 to two years in prison for "insult and defamation" of President Mamadi Doumbouya. Words. Not weapons, not conspiracies, not violence. Words.

We must ask the question that Conakry refuses to hear: in what country can a head of state send an opponent to prison because he has been criticized? The answer is simple, and it is shameful. In a country where freedom of expression exists only when it flatters those in power.

Let us recall the facts. Doumbouya seized power in a coup in September 2021, overthrowing Alpha Condé. He then had himself elected president. Under his rule, judges have become instruments, and political criticism a criminal offence. On October 2, 2025, on the occasion of independence day, the president pardoned 216 detainees, including Aliou Bah. But this pardon was no act of justice. It came with a forty-five-day "civic supervision course." Let us translate that: you do not free a man who was wrongly convicted, you release him under surveillance, making sure he understands who decides his freedom. The regime pulled off the feat of turning arbitrary detention into a favor granted by the prince.

And the pan-African justice system had already spoken. At the end of September, the ECOWAS Court of Justice demanded the "immediate and unconditional release" of Aliou Bah. A legally binding decision for a member state. What did Conakry do? It waited. It dragged its feet. It chose to present the release as clemency. When a state ignores its own regional court, it no longer needs to declare that it is outside the law. Its actions say it for it.

This case is not isolated, and this is where our anger must rise. Across the region, the military juntas of the Sahel and West Africa have followed the same script: suspend parties, ban demonstrations, imprison journalists and activists, then organize elections whose outcome is known in advance. They speak of sovereignty. But what sovereignty is there when a citizen cannot criticize his own leader without risking prison? A sovereignty seized from the people is simply a dictatorship that has changed uniforms.

We must also look beyond our West African borders, because the same struggle is playing out across the continent. The same month, South Africa's electoral commission certified the municipal election results: the ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela, took 30.76% of the vote, its worst score since 1994. The Democratic Alliance, its main liberal rival, won 24.67%. A party that had dominated for thirty years was punished at the ballot box, over power cuts, water shortages and failing public services. That is what democracy looks like: a voter who can dismiss a government that disappoints him, without firing a single shot and without spending a night in police custody. While Pretoria opens the door to alternation, Conakry locks it in a cell.

And while our governments squabble over contracts and presidential pardons, war is creeping toward our borders. A report from the International Crisis Group published on October 29 warns about the Vakaga region in northern Central African Republic. Three and a half years of war in neighboring Sudan are sending refugees, fighters and weapons pouring in. Central African armed groups, such as Nourreddine Adam's FPRC and Arda Hakouma's MDRPC, are enriching themselves through looting and mercenary work. The attack on Am Dafock on June 30 left some thirty dead. Thirty families in mourning, whose names will appear in no official communiqué.

The report also points to the growing power of the United Arab Emirates in the region, which, according to multiple sources, is fueling the Sudanese conflict. We cannot accept foreign capitals investing billions in our ports, our mines and our military alliances while our populations pay the price in blood. Those who finance the militias never arrive in Vakaga villages wearing officers' uniforms. It is civilians who die. Always.

So what is to be done? Solutions exist, and they are not complicated. The first is the most basic: free all prisoners of conscience, without conditions or "civic re-education" courses. The second is to demand that the rulings of the ECOWAS Court of Justice be enforced, without delay and without bargaining. A regional court that is not obeyed is nothing but a backdrop. The third is a binding electoral calendar, supervised by independent observers, with a guarantee that the opposition can stand for election without fear of prison.

We also have models to follow. Senegal experienced an alternation of power in 2024, after a period of tension, and Macky Sall accepted defeat. Ghana carried out the same transition in 2024. Botswana and Mauritius have proven for decades that a state governed by the rule of law, strong institutions, an independent judiciary and transparent market rules produce prosperity and stability. These are not imported Western models. They are African successes, built by Africans, that show power can be returned to those who confer it.

And we, as citizens, what must we demand? We must demand that our governments stop treating criticism as treason. We must demand judges who take no orders from the palace. We must demand parliaments that oversee the executive instead of applauding it. We must demand that our partners, whether they come from Paris, Beijing, Moscow or Abu Dhabi, stop negotiating with dictators on the backs of peoples. And we must demand that the African Union and ECOWAS enforce their own rules, because a principle that applies only to opponents becomes a weapon.

Aliou Bah has walked out of prison. But hundreds of other Guineans remain inside, and millions live in fear of telling the truth. His release must not be presented as a victory for the regime. It must be the starting point of a demand: never again shall an African citizen pay for his freedom with the simple act of thinking out loud. The question is no longer whether we are capable of doing better. The question is how much longer we will go on accepting being told to keep quiet.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL