Ebun Olowu
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced his resignation on live television in the early hours of Wednesday morning following the mutiny of the country’s soldiers on Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
The President and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse were arrested by the military after a mutiny on Tuesday, following months of street protests in the volatile West African state, which is also battling an Islamic insurgency.
Wearing a surgical masks in recognition of the coronavirus pandemic, a weary-looking Keita appeared on state tv to announce he was stepping down with a view to keep away from any bloodshed.
The 75-year-old deposed chief mentioned if “certain elements” of the army needed to finish his presidency with “their intervention, do I really have a choice?” Keita additionally introduced that his authorities and the National Assembly could be dissolved.
Keita’s resignation speech capped a day of turmoil that started when troopers seized weapons from a military base in Kati and superior on the capital of Bamako. A reporter in Mali instructed VOA’s French to Africa service that the troopers “went on the rampage, got to the arsenals, got the guns, started shooting in the air, went out and cut off access to the camp.”
Scores of anti-government protesters gathered in Bamako’s central square to cheer the troopers on as they made their strategy to Keita’s home to arrest him.
The troopers arrested Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse at Keita’s home and drove them again to Kati, the identical camp to the place the 2012 coup that overthrew President Amadou Toumani Toure started. The overthrow of Toure unleashed a violent Islamic insurgency in central Mali, regardless of the continued presence of French troops that originally drove the jihadists out of northern Mali.
No casualties have been reported from Tuesday’s rebellion.
