For heaven sake, I feel like melting from the heat of political turbulence. My head is throbbing with headaches. My body is nudging me with aches. I feel like staging my own junta and "drain the swamp" of the coup rulers. This repetitive, opportunistic coups in Africa are taking a toll on me for sure.
We are tired. Tired of news broadcast with screaming headlines starting with "the military has taken over power from...".
I don't know if I am overreacting, but this is existential reality of the never-ending cycle of missionless coups.
And if there are Africans here thinking that coup leaders in Africa have an alternative progressive leadership, then they need to be exorcised - to free the demons of blindness and sycophancy camping in their head.
To clarify myself, atleast, we are only indebted to them that they diagnosed that we need change, but they themselves are odd for the elusive future that we want, and do not know where to start and where to steer the country. The ship will just sink beyond the wreckage of the titan. And neither are they new. They are the descendants of the establishment with the same barbaric tricks riding on the rising anger from the dissatisfied and underserved public.
Their playbook is obvious; just to hang onto power to as well protect their overnight wealth together with their old devilish maniacs. Coups are unbefitting and always make me agnostic towards the opportunists who unceremoniously oust democratically elected African presidents. Suspending the constitution, dissolving parliament, shutting down dissending voices, not listening to the civil rights groups, and not seeking legally-backed advice from the judiciary offer a recipe for further statelessness. Military rule is not a replacement for a democratically promulgated civil, direct representative leadership. It, instead, overhauls cumulative gains that have been made over time and renders it hard to agree on a common ground to return to the pro-people political systems. And this has happened all the time.
Coups have been happening here, every now and then. It is not new and according to me, it is not eccentric that I am witnessing it again. When you flashback over a series of African coups, none has given us a glimmer of hope. They have always worked to the disadvantage of the ordinary. States have been plunged into an abyss, tribalism, serial murders, nepotism, and economic wreckage.
Coup leaders are not far from the tree that offered them shade while they were powerless and poor. Overnight, they became tyrannical, arrogant, and rich by virtue of siphoning public resources and marshaling them in overseas, perhaps in preparation for their second coming - not as saviors - but ousters. Coup perpetrators often run the risk of throwing the country off balance and distorting, disordering, and disconnecting the very little foundation of the country's institutions. It is so painful to watch a country that has endured elongated periods of economic stagnation and political turmoils turn into a battleground of rebels, with imminent bloodshed.
And, as Africans, we can glean priceless lessons from our own failed states and those from abroad. Taliban has played the same rebel game for as many years as they wanted and since then, Afghanistan has become a breeding ground for terror groups. Almost a greater part of the Middle East has footprints of ISIL and Mujahideen, extreme rebels known for bombings and killings. Somalia lost its soul in 1991 when then President Siad Barre was ousted.
Oligui Nguema, the latest junta leader in Gabon was the aide de camp to the then President Omar Bongo who ruled the country from 1967 until his death in 2009. He is a cousin to Ali Bongo, the newest ousted president in Africa. He was as well the commander-in-chief of the country's most powerful security agency regarded as Gabonese Security Guard. The Bongo family has historically siphoned thousands of euros from the public covers and oil companies and purchased real estate properties in France and other unknown countries.
As of 2022, it was estimated that the Bongo family had a networth of $85 million.
As per Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Oligui Nguema, by virtue of being a relative to the Bongo family, plundered Gabonese economy and hid the proceeds of corruption in foreign countries. From 2015 to 2018, he purchased homes worth $1 billion in cash in Maryland, US.
Mohamed Morsi, the 5th Egyptian president, was ousted from power, a year after he was democratically elected in 2012. He was accused of killing protesters and leaking of state secrets to Qatar. He was overthrown by the then military commander, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (the current president). How President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi will save himself from the recoup will depend on whether he will put in place pro-people institutions or not.
In 2021, Col Mamady Doumbouya ousted President Alpha Conde and brought his 11-year old rule to unceremonious end. Upon claiming power, he announced on the state's television that "the Guinean personalisation of political life is over. We will no longer entrust politics to one man, we will entrust it to the people." However, Col Mamady Doumbouya is not new to the regime of the embattled President Alpha Conde. He was among the 25 officials who had been sanctioned by the European Union (EU) during the last ousted regime. Nonetheless, it is now 2 years since Col Mamady Doumbouya militarily rose to power, but he is yet to return power to the civilian rule.
The list of new directionless, visionless, and leaderless junta in Africa is endless...
But what can we learn from this junta trend?
That most of the African coups are predictable given that the elite from the ruling families are appointed in different positions within the military, state corporations, and perliament. The junta elite is characterized by a series of love triangles, state marriages, and break ups. No outsider has never been a junta leader in the continent. Only those who are close to the rulers and who also happened to be corrupt as well are capable of pulling a coup trigger.
But, is military coup a solution to the problems facing Africans?
Not at all. Those preparing the next coup should know they will as well exit power through coup.
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It's really good to hear your view on this. I know it's silly to think of "Africa" as one place, because it's enormous, home to more human genetic diversity than the entire rest of the world combined, and each nation is unique. However, contagion by way of coup is a funny thing: it tends to spread by way of geography. Once a coup happens nearby, another coup is many times more likely in a given nation.
I'm very concerned about the turn toward authoritarianism, and especially the turn away from the west and toward Russia and China. I certainly understand the strong desire to kick the colonial overlords out (such as in Niger), but trading one former master for another current master is no trade-off the people should be willing to accept.
All of Africa suffered by a couple of centuries of European colonialism. The invaders had little regard for the lives of the people who they found there. Many tribes in Africa already had many conflicts against each other and the Europeans were able to use those conflicts to their advantage. The Africans who joined with the winning Europeans became part of the ruling class, so when the Europeans finally gave various countries "independence", it was often those people who took control. Many of the borders of these countries were not based on African tribal histories or relationships, most of the lines were drawn by the colonialists. I don't know if people have developed any loyalty to the "state" which has never been loyal to them. From far away, it always seems like a fight to see who gets to exploit the resources and oppress the people. 56 countries are part of Africa. Maybe ten of them have a government that is close to having free elections, free speech, and a free press. The one that is listed as the most democratic, Cape Verde, isn’t even on the continent.