Burundi’s president, Evariste Ndayishimiye has sacked the nation’s prime minister, Alain Guillaume Bunyoni, and his cabinet chief general, Gabriel Nizigama, for plotting a coup against him.
This was made known on Wednesday, September 7, after the nation’s lawmakers approved the appointment of security minister, Gervais Ndirakobuca, to replace Bunyoni as prime minister in a unanimous 113-0 vote.
Bunyoni’s departure came after Ndayishimiye who has been in power for just over two years.
“Do you think an army general can be threatened by saying they will make a coup? Who is that person? Whoever it is should come and in the name of God, I will defeat him,” Ndayishimiye had warned at a meeting of government officials.
Nizigama was replaced by Colonel Aloys Sindayihebura, who until now has been in charge of domestic intelligence within the National Intelligence Service.
Ndayishimiye took power in June 2020 after his predecessor Pierre Nkurunziza died of heart failure.
Nkurunziza had launched a crackdown on political opponents in 2015 that left 1,200 people dead and made Burundi a global pariah.
The turmoil erupted after Nkurunziza launched a bid for a third term in office, despite concerns over the legality of such a move, according to Channels.
The United States and the European Union had imposed sanctions over the unrest that also sent 400,000 people fleeing the country, with reports of arbitrary arrests, torture, killings and enforced disappearances.
Ndirakobuca, the newly appointed premier, was among those sanctioned in 2015 by the United States for silencing those opposed to Nkurunziza’s third term bid.
Burundi’s history is littered with presidential assassinations, coup, ethnic massacres and a long civil war that ended in 2006 and has left over 300,000 dead.
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