By Ken Ugbechie
Military putsch, popularly known as coup, has defined leadership in Africa for many decades. It’s actually one of the reasons Africa is tagged backward by the West. The inability of leaders in African nations to submit themselves to the rule of law, and not lords above the law, makes putsch inevitable, almost.
Aside the now established fact that some persons in the military have itchy fingers placed over the triggers of their guns which, driven by inordinate ambition to grab power, helps them to shoot their way to the commanding heights of their country’s power equation, there is sufficient evidence to support the argument that unruly behaviour of the so-called democratically elected leaders is the catalyst that fuels the coup spring on the continent.
When African leaders suborn the laws of their countries, offer nothing but bad governance that inflicts pain on the populace; when they grossly manipulate polls, steal brazenly from public till and flagrantly sit-tight on their seats as if it’s a monarchy, military incursion becomes inevitable.
When a leader sits tight on a seat of power and manipulates the course of democratic change via credible polls, such a leader makes peaceful change impossible. And where peaceful change is frustrated and rendered both improbable and impossible, violent change suddenly becomes appealing and a veritable vent for the people to exhale. This is the crux of matter in Africa. Across the continent, many citizens are choking from the asphyxiating grip of their leaders. They languish in prickly poverty. They die young from even the commonest diseases because they can’t afford medicare. The average African child is a broken child; hardworking yet hard-suffering; educated yet without jobs or any alternative existential vocation. Born poor and bred in poverty and squalour, yet his leaders live in obscene opulence hallmarked by wanton wastes. The leaders wander about the globe in gold-plated jets and share champagne with their Western advisors whose advice and partnerships have coalesced to render the African child hungry and famished in the midst of plenty. Yes, plenty. Africa is endowed with all the goodies that life can offer. It is the most endowed continent on earth with the widest diversity of mineral deposits.
From the huge deposits of diamonds in Botswana, Congo, South Africa to the gold reserves in South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania, to the uranium swathe in Namibia, Niger, South Africa, there is evidential totems to believe that God specially blessed the African continent with the best gifts of life. Precious stones, crude oil deposits, rich fauna and flora, tropical rain forest, alluvial soil that supports growth of every plant, Africa has them all, far more than any other continent. Yet, far more than any continent, Africa harbours the largest pool of poor, out-of-school children. Africa is the mother hen of the world. She lays all the golden eggs, provides the straw for global pasture but cannot afford both the egg and the meat therefrom. Africa provides the raw materials for global textile, uranium for global power but her citizens, bar their thieving leaders, are in tatters as well as exist without steady and stable electricity. These and many more oddities are the nectar that attract military intrusion into Africa’s leadership space.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States probably had Africa in mind when he echoed a philosophy from Confucius school that “those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent change inevitable.”
In Africa, some leaders have made peaceful change through the ballot impossible. Ipso facto, they also made violent change inevitable. In the last three years, no fewer than seven African countries have come under military rule. Burkina Faso (since January 2022), Chad (since April 2021), Guinea (since September 2021), Mali (since August 2020), Niger (since July 2023), Sudan (since October 2021), and most recently Gabon (August 2023), almost taking a cue from Niger. The sad reality is that since the military forcefully took over in these countries, it has been backward movement. Mali is embroiled in an atrocious war with Mali, ditto Sudan where two strong Generals have sworn to satiate their ego with human blood. While soldiers kill both soldiers and civilians in these African countries, China and Western nations, their steady suppliers of arms and ammunition, are smiling to the bank and investing in research and development to discover more innovative ways to make more weapons of mass destruction for Africa and even smarter ways to convert cheaply procured raw materials from the warring African nations and turn them into finished products which they will sell to the same Africa at exorbitant prices.
This is all because some African leaders have turned the leadership of their nations into a monarchy where they either preside over for as long as life, not the law, permits them or they appoint their family members to succeed them. Such primitive self-glorification is what has kept the military plunging their jackboot into the corridor of power. It is germane to preach that the military should stay away from politics, but a superior argument should be that African leaders respect the basic plank of democracy which is the rule of law. An African leader who changes the constitution of his country just to remain in power is as wicked and reprehensible as a soldier who shoots his way to office.
Pray, what are these men still doing in office as leaders of their nations? Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has been in office for 37 years; Teodoro Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea has been there for 44 years of ceaseless lavishing of his country’s wealth with his family. He added a comical dimension to his intoxicating power broth when he appointed his son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, as the Vice President. Lucky family. Both father and son have built an ignoble reputation of wasteful spending of public money and red-light frolic unbecoming of leadership. Father and son are well known in France, in Switzerland and are unrestrained from acquiring anything that money can buy.
Poor Cameroon has Pa Paul Biya rocking the seat of power as President for 41 years. Now 90 years old, the nonagenarian is not quitting even in his vegetative state. Biya does not live in Cameroon where he’s President. He lives in Switzerland but he’s occasionally ferried into Cameroon just for mere symbolism.
Need we talk about Denis Nguesso of Republic of Congo? He’s been rocking the chair for 38 years, tweaking the constitution and rigging elections just to still be President. Imperial Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea has done 30 years as leader of that tiny nation. In all these countries and for all these years, the fortune of both citizens and the nations in general never got any better.
It’s hard to make excuse for any leader who cannot groom a successor. But it’s fair verdict to describe such leader as megalomaniac, egotist and self-conceited. That’s what many African leaders are and that’s why they have triggered a coup spring on the continent. But even the military goons have turned out more cancerous than the civilians they upstaged. The AU, ECOWAS and other sub-regional bodies are helpless because they are populated by leaders who are morally challenged.
