Bola Olajuwon, Assistant Editor
MALI, a landlocked country in West Africa, is the eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over 1,240,000 square kilometres (480,000 sq mi). Its population is 19.1 million. In the late 19th century, during the scramble for Africa, France seized control of the country, making it a part of French Sudan. French Sudan (then known as the Sudanese Republic) joined with Senegal in 1959, achieving independence in 1960 as the Mali Federation. The country is in the news again for the wrong reasons.
After becoming President in 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita declared that the days of mutinous soldiers undermining the power of government in Mali were over. Keita said Kati Military Barracks “will no longer scare Bamako”. He was referring to the military base outside the capital, Bamako, where a mutiny had toppled then-President Amadou Toumani Toure.
But seven years later, Keita, 75, suffered a similar fate. Some soldiers from Kati Military Barracks on Tuesday took up arms against his embattled government, detaining him, his Prime Minister Boubou Cissé and some officials.
Among those who spearheaded the arrest and ouster of Keita was 25-year-old Colonel Malick Diaw, a Chief of Staff of the third Military Region of Kati camp, where mutiny started.
The development was the height after several months of anti-government demonstrations, led by 5 June Movement – Rally of Patriotic Forces (M5-RFP) – seeking Keita’s resignation.
It finally showed that efforts made by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mediator, former President Goodluck Jonathan, to bring together Keïta and leaders of the opposition movement for talks had failed.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday received an update from Jonathan on the political situation in Mali. Jonathan, who was in Mali from Monday to Thursday, last week as the ECOWAS special envoy, briefed Buhari on his meetings with the stakeholders.
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The ECOWAS leaders including President Muhammadu Buhari last month visited Bamako for discussion on how to end the face-off between the government and the opposition.
Mali’s main opposition group, the June 5 Movement had insisted on Keita’s resignation, a position not acceptable to ECOWAS, which insisted only on democratic process in the change of power within its jurisdiction.
All that is now history as the mutinous soldiers claimed they took over power owing to security crisis caused by insurgents in the country’s north and public perception of high-level corruption.
The soldiers also rode on the disputed legislative elections in April and an anaemic economy, which drew tens of thousands of people to the streets of Bamako in recent weeks to demand Keita’s resignation.
The dramatic developments on Tuesday bore a troubling resemblance to the events that led to the 2012 military coup, which ultimately unleashed years of chaos in Mali, when the ensuing power vacuum allowed Islamic extremists to seize control of northern towns. A French-led military operation ousted the jihadists but they merely regrouped and then expanded their reach during Keita’s presidency.
The implication of the coup to democracy in West Africa is that when the world is turning to full-fledged participatory governance, those who have no business ruling the people, other than protecting the country’s territorial integrity, are taking over the running of government. The military too are is immune to corruption and bad governance they used as an excuse to usurp power.
They came with the idea of correcting a bad government, but ended up trampling on human rights and rule of law.
Other military adventurists in the sub-region may plan in future to stage coups to truncate popular democracies in the continent.
In most African countries, where coupists struck, they usually clamped down on the constitutions and thereafter rule by decrees. Most governments ended up starting over again to learn democratic ethos when the rule of law is restored.
Malians will suffer the pains of ECOWAS’ sanctions more in a country where an average citizen is feeling the pangs of inflations and alleged bad governance. Those who take over power through coups usually dig in to line their pockets while the masses suffer.
The current quagmire can only be settled through consultations, negotiations and horse-trading by parties to the crisis, including the Tuareg and other rebel groups in the country’s north. The ECOWAS and AU may be taking hardline stance now. The two bodies, with the backing of the UN, must drive the search for common solutions in the embattled country.
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