A close friend of former Ivorian Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, accused of plotting and living in exile for several years, has been arrested in Abidjan, his relatives said Wednesday.
“Commander Abdoulaye Fofana, the former aide-de-camp of Guillaume Soro has been arrested and is being held in the premises of the Agban gendarmerie” in Abidjan, said Moussa Toure, former head of communication of Guillaume Soro. Mr. Toure said, however, that Major Fofana “was no longer in contact with the camp of the former prime minister since April 2021.
In 2021, the Ivorian judiciary issued an arrest warrant for “disturbing public order and illegal wearing of fatigues” against Commander Fofana, after numerous statements by him on social networks calling for a mutiny by soldiers in Côte d’Ivoire.
Guillaume Soro, who lives in exile, was sentenced in mid-July 2021 in absentia to life imprisonment for “undermining state security”, “conspiracy”, “attempted attack on state authority”.
A leader of the rebellion that controlled the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire in the 2000s, Guillaume Soro helped Alassane Ouattara militarily come to power during the violent post-election crisis of 2010-2011 against incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to accept Mr. Ouattara’s victory in the late 2010 presidential election.
Guillaume Soro became Ouattara’s first head of government, and in 2012 was appointed president of the National Assembly, a position he held until 2019. But the two men gradually fell out, until they broke up in early 2019, according to observers, because of Mr. Soro’s presidential ambitions.