Coups
Jibrin Ibrahim
Enablers of the Return of the Military in West Africa
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 4th February 2022
The current democratic transition in West Africa started in the early 1990s.
At the formal level, it led to the establishment of constitutional rule and the operation re-establishment of a multi-party systems. The problem is that democratic transition requires a more profound socio-political transformation that allows freely elected rulers and the majority of the civil population to impose their supremacy over ruling oligarchies of the military or civilian ethno-regional cabals that had been in power for decades. The did not happen in most of our countries. The end goal which was to have been the development of a democratic political culture in which large sections of society internalises democratic values and citizens are able to determine those who exercise power was not achieved. Most African constitutions are excellent documents; they have most of the right provisions about the rule of law, human, civil and political rights, elective institutions, governmental accountability, and separation of powers and so on. The problem however is that these provisions are often not followed.
It is important to note that West African politics has been excessively marked by a history of a high frequency of coups d’état, civil wars and militarism. The military were in power in most countries of the region for twenty to thirty years. When liberalisation and democratisation began in the early 1990s, there was a long history of militarism and their enablers that stepped up to usurp new political opportunities that were emerging. One of the basic outcomes of decades of militarism in West Africa has been the decomposition of state and society with the widespread growth of private armies and armed bands. In many of the countries, the military lost control of the monopoly of the means of violence. Numerous warlords with a stake in war emerged and entrenched themselves in the political process and fought for the control of power and natural resources. These countries and regions such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, the Niger Delta and large parts of the Sahel/Sahara regions of Mali and Niger witnessed persistent armed banditry in the 1990s.
This was the context that led ECOWAS to adopt the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance (21 December, 2001). It sets out the constitutional convergence criteria to be fulfilled by Community members based on the principles of good governance – respect for the rule of law, the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, the promotion of non-partisan and responsible press and the democratic control of the armed forces. It was on the basis of this Protocol that when President Gnasingbe Eyadema of Togo died in 2005, and his son simply took over power in total disregard of the Constitution of the country; the Chair of ECOWAS, Mamadou Tandja of Niger Republic and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria mounted enormous pressure on Faure Gnasingbe to step down. Faced with the pressure, he stepped aside and allowed for elections.
It is ironical that the same President Tandja who was giving lessons in democracy to Faure Gnasingbe also fell afoul of the wrath of ECOWAS principles. His tenure of ten years, which consisted of two terms of five years each was to end in December 2010. Just before that time, he demanded for a Constitutional review that would allow him tenure elongation. The Constitutional Court ruled that his request was unconstitutional as the Constitution had a provision that the tenure clause could not be amended. He disbanded the Constitutional Court and wrote up his own “personal” Constitution which even had a clause allowing him to continue in power without elections for three more years. ECOWAS however come out clearly and unambiguously to oppose his move. In an unprecedented move in West Africa, ECOWAS went as far as declaring that as far as they were concerned, his tenure as President expired in December 2010 meaning they no longer recognised him as President. This clear stance gave fillip to the struggle of opposition parties and civil society who organised mass demonstrations against Tandja’s attempt to destroy Niger’s democracy. It was in this context that the military intervened, removed Tandja from power, organised fresh elections and went back to the barracks in less than a year.
ECOWAS was also very active in guiding Cote d’Ivoire back to the path of democracy from the carnage of civil war. Cote d’Ivoire is a country that was not too long ago one of the shining stars of stability and prosperity in the West African region. Political relations in the country broke down following the death of the country’s founding President, Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993, coupled with the military coup that overthrew the government of Henri Konan Bedie who succeeded him in 1999. This threw up deep internal divisions resulting in the mutiny that escalated into a full-scale rebellion in September 2002. After his tenure in 2005, Gbagbo refused to organise another election for five years. It was only in 2010 that ECOWAS, the African Union and the United Nations persuaded him to hold elections under UN supervision. He lost the elections but got the Constitutional Council he had appointed to declare him winner. ECOWAS however stood firm and threatened to remove him by force if he did not step down and hand over to Ouattara who won the elections. Eventually, patriotic forces marched on Abidjan and removed him from power allowing the elected President to take up his mandate which Gbagbo had confiscated.
In Senegal, President Abdoulaye Wade at 85 wanted a third term in 2012. Citizens surrounded the National Assembly to stop them passing a law to allow authorise his ambition. What was important however was massive demonstrations organised by the Movement, M-23 and rap musicians who galvanised the youth to chase Wade out of power. One of the leading politicians that joined the revolt was current President Macky Sall, who was the main beneficiary of the struggle. Today, Macky Sall too wants a third term.
Guinea is another country in which ECOWAS played a major role. It is a country which had not known free and fair elections since 1958. The shooting incident that led to the evacuation of Guinea’s third dictator in fifty years, Captain Dadis Camara paved the way for democratic transition that led to elections of 27th June 2010. Two major candidates emerged, Cellou Dalen seen as the leader of rich and powerful Fulani elite who had been excluded from power since 1958 and Alpha Conde, leader of the ethnic minorities and an historic opposition figure and Malinke power broker. In the second round of the elections, Alpha Conde emerged winner and was sworn in as President. Alpha Conde came to Daura in April 2019 and stayed a week enjoying Sallah meat with President Buhari and was even honoured with a chieftaincy title. He returned to Guinea and announced a third term agenda which finally led to the coup. President Buhari kept quiet. At 83 years old, what did he want to remain in the presidency for?
In Mali former President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita – (IBK) died at 76 years old after being removed in a coup. He was in power between 2013 to 2020. He had been Prime Minister between 1994 to 2000 after which he became the President of the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007. Why would that old man rig elections to remain in power?
The argument he is simple. The people of West Africa are being exhausted by repeated cycles of bad governance. Secondly, ECOWAS was much more focused on contesting the derailment of the democratic order. They did not wait until the military takes over before acting. Today, they do nothing until the is a coup and offer medicine after death. Finally, the military are returning to power in West Africa because the politicians are enabling them. We must develop the capacity to disrupt the activities of such enablers.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Emmanuel Udogu
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Brother Ike Udogu,
I have been unable to find what you describe as a “poignant piece...published in this forum” under that title
However, in anticipation of its probable contents (power corrupts the brain cells etc.) since the leadership in question is not necessarily Nigerian, and since leadership does not occur in a vacuum but in a crucible, it should also be interesting to hear how someone like Jim Sidanius (political psychology) should weigh in on that kind of topic
Emmanuel Udogu
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Cornelius Hamelberg
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Emmanuel Udogu
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Brother Ike Udogu,
Thanks for the posting from your learned friend the professor. It had not been “published on this forum”, as you said, and that’s why I couldn’t find it. It certainly makes for interesting reading, the diagnoses of that metamorphosis that occurs when e.g. custom’s officer A in his Volkswagen Beetle transits from rags to riches. As dramatic as
“The
change in the day that makes them rant and rave
Black
Power! Black Power!
And
the change that comes over them at night, as they sigh and
moan:
White
thighs, ooh, white thighs”
Just like politicians, professors can also be said to wield a certain amount of power in their own limited spheres of influence; for instance, there was Brother George Nelson Preston saying in a letter to me – back in 1972 - that as soon as he bags his PhD he could then start referring to himself as “Papa Doc” by which I understood him to mean that he would become not only an authority but a virtual dictator in his field, i.e. start saying, feeling and believing, “What I say goes!” - as in that Noam Chomsky book of that title, “What we say Goes”
Sometimes, I wonder if some professors’ heads (not George's) don’t also need to be examined, clinically examined in the right psychiatric department first to diagnose and to then either reverse or to improve on certain autocratic tendencies. As Jesus said, “I have not come for those who don't need a physician”, and as Einstein once remarked prior to his theory passing the litmus test of approval/ verification; “A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?”The illusion usually begins when Professor P erroneously believes that he is of the same status or calibre as Professor E(instein, and that’s when such a professor needs to have his head examined.
It's quite an interesting thesis but I’m sceptical about how easily the damage that’s already done when x incarnates into unfeeling, aloof and unrecognisably different personality y, can be reversed back into feeling and being his former empathic, compassionate, caring, humble self.
In the case of a corrupt president, long term imprisonment with hard manual labour is the kind of punishment that could help bring him back to his senses.
Right now I’m in two moods, happy that God / Allah was on our side and we were on His side as He heard and fulfilled our prayers and the prayers of the Senegalese marabouts as our Senegal Brothers did their duty, whipped Pharaoh El-Sisis’s Egypt, so badly. Our men dominated the game from start to finish on average 75% ball possession, 89% completed passes, no fouls, so many shots on target. Mohammed Salah got a yellow card. Sad.
Ojogbon Falola opines, “the quality is not impressive”. What does he know about football, anyway? He should stick to history and epistemology
If (good word “if” - the beginning of all hypocrisy – according to Shakespeare or maybe the dude known as Paul, in one of his Epistles) – if it had been the other way, where would we be today, with them Arabs up North boasting that they whipped the asses of them Bantu Negroes down South of the Sahara and were crowned champions of Africa for the eighth time?
As you may not know, I’m not easily impressed either. So, I just checked out the list of books that you have written, to get an idea of who I’m talking to, that you are not a mere some wannabe who is carrying so many volumes of unwritten books/ obtuse philosophical thoughts/ facts/opinions even music and coconut poetry in his head, not to mention, as a poet friend once put it, “unfucked spasms”...
As an African book man you’ve probably read Kofi Awoonor’s This Earth, My Brother (In 1979 had dinner with Awoonor and Soyinka – in a restaurant – and they both ridiculed me because as an initiate I was singing the praises of the Karma Kagyu (Adepoju should have been there to wonder), so back to earth and here we are, with all this information gathering and analysis of coups in Africa, books such as Civil-Military Relations in Sierra Leone etc. (as I wandered lonely as a cloud (Wordsworth) your wordy & imaginative professor would probably say “a plethora of books”, maybe even “a large crowd of book heads”) but back to our present continuous – some would say our perennial – dilemma, boils down to this question: Do we get the governments we deserve? I suppose you begin the disembowelling of that that question by reducing it to its constituent parts, for starters, who are the “we”? Does that imply collective responsibility? In that case, I plead “not guilty”
If you want to trace the origins of attempted coups/ insubordination we could say that it all started with that rebellion up there in Heaven, when Lucifer, said to be as bright as a morning star was kicked out and he took a third of the heavenly hierarchy with him, landing on planet earth, some say somewhere up in the Himalayas and started preaching his mischief to those who want political power, whispering in their ears, exactly as he tempted Jesus in the wilderness: All these kingdoms of the earth I’ll give to you but on one conditions only: You must bow down and worship me! We are to assume that some politicians have succumbed to the temptation.
Me, I’m praying for Julius Maada Bio (a former coup-maker partner) that he will renounce all evil and start doing only good first of all by taking his hands off the Mayoress of Freetown immediately, not tomorrow, failing which – please mark my words: failing which all will be lost.
I’m saddened by the passing away of Lata Mangeshkar...now one with the universe
Complementary to “Professor Kperogi's poignant piece” on that subject matter, I should like to recommend two books:
1. Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings ( a story about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley)
2. Mo Yan: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out