Guinea's interim president Colonel Mamady Doumbouya blasted the West for imposing its own governance model on Africa, noting that it is "having trouble adapting to our reality" during a UN address Thursday, following a recent series of coups on the African contient.
"Africa is suffering from a model of governance that has been imposed on us. A model that is certainly good and effective for the West, which designed it over the course of its history, but which is having trouble adapting to our reality," he told the UN General Assembly.
He added: "Alas, I would like to say that the graft has not taken."
From his experience, he has "better appreciated the extent to which the model has above all contributed to maintaining a system of exploitation and pillaging of our resources by others, and very active corruption of our elites," Doumbouya said.
He noted that he wasn't just another soldier "who wants to twist the neck of democracy" and "impose his dictatorship".
"A putschist isn't just someone who takes up arms, who overthrows a regime," Doumbouya stressed.
Referring to situations in various countries, the leader highlighted that "the real putschists, the most numerous, who are not the subject of any condemnation, it is also those who scheme, who use deception, who cheat in order to manipulate the texts of the Constitution in order to maintain themselves in power externally."
He said he had taken action in Guinea "to save the country from complete chaos." At the time of the coup, Guinea had experienced months of protests against then-president Alpha Conde's changes to the constitution and re-election for a third term.
He called on Africa's young and old to break with the old world order, while defending non-alignment.
"It's time to take our rights back, to give us our place. But above all, it's time to stop lecturing us, to stop looking down on us, and to stop treating us like children," he concluded.