by Eze Eluchie
Despite being awash with vast deposits of mineral and natural
resources, countries across Africa, particularly in the West and Central
regions of the continent, have maintained near-permanent positions on the
lowest rankings in global index for all negatives: ranging from the poorest
countries, the highest unemployment levels, lowest life expectancies, highest
infant mortality rates, highest illiteracy levels, widest income gaps, amongst
other global parameters for gauging standard of living, strength of national
economies and quality of lives of populations within any jurisdiction.
Whilst the vast majority of the populations in the various countries in
these region eck out a living at subhuman levels, the individuals opportune to
rule over the mineral rich countries in these regions are globally notorious
for ostentatious lifestyles, junketing in state-of-the-art private jets and
yacht, shopping at the most exquisite and exclusive of designer outlets,
purchasing multi-million dollar mansions and making payment for all these
purchases and lifestyles in raw cash, and generally portraying themselves as
living life to the fullest
A vicious looting-cum-ruling class:
Those at the helm of affairs and their inner circle (which often times
cuts across all sectors of society including identified cronies in the
political, religious, and military settings), in the various countries in the
region often times have no other means of livelihood except for access to the
public till. In direct and real terms, these characters were merely robbing
their countries dry and living large off the loot, whilst viciously
emasculating and pauperizing the populations over whom they rule.
The socioeconomic situations in most countries in sub-Sahara Africa is
simply not sustainable, akin to being perched on a keg of gunpowder – all it
required was the slightest spark to ignite an explosion. As the populations
became more aware of their sorrowful predicament in the hands of their rulers,
the agitation for betterment in life conditions was met with more brutal
suppression of rights and more frenzied approach to stealing of public
resources, by a rulership which had become less attached to their populations,
and more fixated on their ‘friendship’ with foreign powers, who they felt would
always come to their aide, whenever.
Not bothered about the responsibilities of a State to its citizens, the
plight of their citizens or to even treat their nationals like human beings,
regimes across the region focused more on crippling national economies,
undermining their populations and allowing their States to be plundered by
foreign interests under the most dubious of international agreements. To
conform with what they perceived were ‘international norms’, these kleptos who
ruled over much of Africa deployed mechanisms to schedule a date when their
local populations will ostensibly, ‘revalidate their mandate’, under supposedly
‘democratic elections’. The practice of democracy was reduced to the sham of
having a date set aside for ‘elections. Democracy thus became a ruse vile
dictatorial regimes adapted to mask their stench and present their foreign
collaborators with a tool to obscure sordid realities from populations in the
West. The fragrance of domestic and foreign election observers and monitors
served to spice up the façade, providing on the one hand domestic
collaborators, who for access to donor-grants, will validate electoral heists,
and on the other, foreign adjudicators who will using the veiled threat of
ability to rule an election ‘far below acceptable international democratic
standards’, ensure that even where there was a ‘slip’, only outcomes favorable
to Western powers were deemed acceptable.
Unfortunately, the judiciary, which in times past used to exude some
semblance of independence, objectivity and competence, and was generally
thought of as ‘the last hope of the common man’, acquiesced their noble role
and joined in-bed, with the looting class, and repeatedly failed to uphold
basic tenets of justice, constitutionalism and the rule of law in adjudicating
over election disputes and efforts to tweak constitutional provisions to
prolong the sufferings of the people – thus leaving the majority disillusioned,
anxious and worried.
Continuing hemorrhage by former colonial overlords:
Visible foreign collaborators with the ruling echelon of these African
countries, are the same colonial overlords from whom the African countries had
gained ‘flag’ independence in the 60’s – mainly France and Britain. These two
European countries continue to maintain, with support of an elite looting class
to whom they had ‘relinquished’ political power, lecherous relationships which
serve to impoverish the vast majority of the populations in the African
countries, allowing vain perks to the looting class whilst the colonial
overlords, through deft bilateral agreements retain stifling control over the
assets of the African countries. The French are more brazen in their approach
as they virtually control the economy, serve as Central Bank and maintain
military bases in all their former colonies. The British on the other hand are
suave about their overbearing control, as they impose stooges and operate more
from behind the scene. They both, however, achieve the same insidious goal of
neocolonialism which has dastardlier consequences for the citizens of the
African countries than what transpired during the colonial era.
The real coups in Africa occurs when the looting class who man the
various African countries discard Constitutional provisions guaranteeing
people’s rights and those related to Presidential tenure limits, renege on
State responsibilities towards the citizenry under the Social Contract theory
and institutionalize bad governance, corruption and vendetta as cardinal
principles of the State. The silence of regional, continental and international
multi-State organizations to these aberrations which diminish the citizens of
African countries, convinces Africans that alternate templates for liberation
and development must be adapted.
Fed up with the pretense at democracy without any positive add-ons to
the lives of the people, and denied of any meaningful path towards effecting
necessary changes to the leadership of their countries via the ballot box, the
emasculated populations are primed, ready and prepared to support any and all
change in government!
Having effectively gauged the socioeconomic environment and the
likelihood of mass support for a putsch, with public show of force in the form
of motorized convoy of military hardware and troops taking over major parts of
the national capital, staccato of bullets rendering the peace of night, and a
terse broadcasts in local media announcing the sacking of the corrupt regimes,
closure of all border entries and the airspace (pretending they have the
capacity to monitor their national airspace), a group of soldiers readily step
in: announcing oft rehashed condemnation of corruption and promising to right
wrongs, better the lot of the citizens, and lead their country to Eldorado. The
severely abused and maligned citizens of the African countries will readily
troop out onto the streets to welcome their new found ‘messiahs’.
Coup Season II
In the course of the past 3 years, starting from 2020, sub-Sahara
Africa seems to have cruised into a season of coups, with soldiers (renegade or
patriotic, depending from which perspective one views the situation), with a
rapidity that was last witnessed in the continent over 30 years ago, staging a
total of 8 coups and counter coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Niger
and now Gabon. The coups, with the sole exception of the coup in Sudan,
occurred in countries which had continued to reel under the stranglehold and
economic exploitation of France.
Blindsided by the rapidity of the collapse of its stooges in West
Africa, France was left flatfooted with the swiftness with which it lost
control of Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso, and the ridicule it was exposed to
when its former victim-States ordered France to pull out the French military
bases off their territories. Faced with the obvious economic collapse its loss
of the freebies it raked in from outlandish exploitation of its colonial
outposts, the French leadership delved into childish tantrums, threatening hell
and brimstone when yet another coup occurred in its former territory, the
Republic of Niger, from which France dubiously appropriated Uranium and Gold
deposits. France realized the existential threat it would suffer if it lost the
vice-like grip it had over a source from which she bolstered the Gold Reserve
which found the French economy and the cheap uranium with which it lit up its
homes and industries in France.
In desperation to ensure that Niger does not remain out of its grip,
France reached out to known stooges, it had long propped up in Senegal and Cote
D’Ivore, and a new lackey on the bloc whose very selection as President of
Nigeria had come after a most dubious electoral heist that had further blighted
Democracy as a reliable system of government in the estimation of Africans. The
Nigerian ruler, in a stark display of his inexperience and novice status in
international relations, acting on the behest of the former colonial overlords
and using the auspices of the regional multinational body, ECOWAS, issued a
one-week ultimatum to the coup leaders in Niger, to reinstate the deposed
French stooge, or face military invasion by some ECOWAS member States.
Tinubu’s naivety & sour antecedents ups the stakes:
This unprecedented condescending acts of some sister-West Africa
countries against Niger, backfired as it directly elicited patriotic fervor
from Nigeriens, who thereafter trooped in their millions in support of their
new Government. The position of the colonial overlords and their regional
stooges masquerading under the ECOWAS tag was worsened when the Governments of
Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso vowed support for the Government in Niger and
concretized their support by moving in troops and armaments in support of the
new regime in Niger
The fact that the Nigerian ruler who was spearheading efforts at
‘restoring democracy’ in Niger was himself a product of electoral heist
tantamount to a coup, and had not been able to stem the rising waves of
banditry and extremist Islamist terror attacks in Nigeria, coupled with the
desperation in former colonial overlords exhibited in their avowal to commit
human and material resources towards the invasion of Niger, exposed a deeper
non-altruistic and selfish coloration to efforts to deny a people who had, via
a coup, eased themselves of the yoke of bad rulers.
Whilst the Niger coup was approaching boiling point with the
declaration by France that it would neither recognize the authority of the new
rulers in Niger and would not withdraw its Ambassador as requested by the new
regime, thus setting the stage for a possible invasion of Niger by France, yet
another group of military officers struck in Gabon, and sacked another dictator
who was seeking to use the ruse of a ‘democratic elections’ to perpetuate his
families’ chokehold on Gabon. A hold that had rendered the population of what
ought to have been one of the richest countries in Africa, to destitution and
backwardness.
If the Niger coup, set alarm bells ringing, the Gabon coup soon
thereafter, pushed the bells to overdrive across the globe. Sit-tight dictators
across Africa immediately embarked on mass sacks/retirement of senior Generals
in their military’s and replacing same with trusted cronies, laboring under the
illusion that with such cosmetic changes in the military, they will continue
their vice hold over their population. Member States of the European Union
likewise got quite started about the sudden loss of stooges who had served to
assure Europe of extremely cheap sources of gas, crude oil and myriad other
mineral resources. The EU leadership, sequel to the Gabon coup, immediately
summoned a meeting of their Foreign and Defense Ministers to harmonize actions
to confront the desire by African countries to be free.
The usual condemnation for coups in Africa, such as announcement of the
suspension of the ‘erring State’, and measured sanctions were announced by the
Africa Union, and other Heads-of-States Clubs, also known as sub-regional
multinational organizations in Africa, were reeled out after each of the 8 coup
thus far in the course of the past 3 years – all to no effect whatsoever.
Where the next coup will take place:
The reality which all must acquiesce to is that there is a new wave of
decolonialization sweeping across Africa. The old order had terribly
short-changed Africa, rendering the continent richest in mineral and natural
resources, the poorest and most raped continent. Those who have benefited from
the scam which has held Africa so backward over the past few decades, need only
to realize that human beings with a quest for advancement and betterment of
themselves, their environment and safeguarding their future, also inhabit the
Africa continent.
As the Coup Season continues, it is likely to, like a tornado, gather
more momentum and intensity as it barrels across the continent. Thus far, the
soldiers who had executed putsches over the past 2 years have remarkably been
non-violent. In some instances, such as the Republics of Niger and Gabon
episodes, allowing the rulers they had deposed access to meetings with
foreigners, meetings that had sustained unwarranted foreign interference and
which could have truncated the putsches. Bets are ow being wagered as to where
the next ouster of despotic regimes masquerading as democracies will occur.
Some countries which, by virtue of the disconnect between the regimes in power
and their populations, level of large scale corruption, viciousness of the
regimes in dealing with their civil populations and other criterion to assess
good governance, can rightly be predicted as eminently qualified for a change
of guards include: Cameroon, Uganda, Senegal and Central African Republic.
Others not too far behind include such territories as Nigeria, Ghana and Cote
D’Ivoire. Nigeria and Senegal have had very dubious election processes which
led to imposition of unfits as rulers over very vibrant populations.
As the coup season unfolds, if coups were to take place in the
aforelisted countries, the various international multi-State organizations
(such as ECOWAS, AU, UN EU and others), which have not sufficiently urged for
the adoption of good governance principles and the rule of law in the countries
highlighted, will do their already depleted images before Africans a world of
good, by refraining from the usual condemnations of coups and imposition of
economic sanction, when and if the coups eventually occur.
The next few months before the Coup Season lapses would be quite
interesting…..
Picture: Malians celebrate coup leaders
the ouster of President Ibrahim Keita
