Guinea-Bissau Military Appoints General N’Tam As New Leader Following Coup

Thursday November 27, 2025
www.thenewsdesk.ng

By Idorenyin UMOREN
With agency reports

Guinea-Bissau’s military appointed General Horta N’Tam, chief of staff of the army, as the country’s new leader for the duration of one year Thursday, November 27, a day after seizing power, arresting the president and derailing the announcement of election results.

Soldiers patrolled the area around the presidential palace in Bissau on Thursday morning and a few people were seen walking along the main road leading to the building, where heavy gunfire rang out the previous day.

After taking the oath of office in a ceremony at the military’s headquarters, General Horta N’Tam, declared that “I have just been sworn in to lead the High Command,” AFP journalists observed.

Dozens of heavily armed soldiers were deployed at the scene as he told a press conference that actions were necessary “to block operations that aimed to threaten our democracy”.

A group of officers on Wednesday said they had seized “total control” of the coup-prone country, suspending the electoral process as Guinea-Bissau awaited the results of last Sunday’s vote, which President Umaro Sissoco Embalo had been expected to win.

Having served until now as the chief of staff of the country’s army, N’Tam is considered to have been close in recent years with President Embalo.

N’Tam said evidence had been “sufficient to justify the operation” adding that “necessary measures are urgent and important and require everyone’s participation”.

Sandwiched between Guinea and Senegal, Guinea-Bissau has experienced four coups since independence from Portugal in 1974, as well as multiple attempted coups.

On Wednesday, November 26, afternoon, General Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, told journalists that the military was assuming control of the country “until further notice” after a plan involving “drug lords” had been uncovered, which had included “the introduction of weapons into the country to alter the constitutional order”.

In addition to halting “the entire electoral process”, he said military forces had suspended “all media programming” and imposed a mandatory curfew.