Tag: Niger Republic

• By Mike Kebonkwu

One appears to be in a quandary as to the concept of democracy inherited and being practiced in Africa south of the Sahara from independence. Democracy has virtually been reduced to rituals of periodic elections and tenure protection of elected leader through state machinery even when the leader has lost the confidence and support of his country men and women.  One is actually wondering what value Africa has added to the development and advancement of the concept of democratic practice that is worth protecting and defending.  Democracy has always been under siege since independence across Africa, with extravagant flamboyance of politicians and military incursions into politics which became the order of the day.  

In the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st Century, the rhythm of martial music was beginning to recede and fade out as a result of consistent advocacy and promotion of the rule of law with the military returning to their traditional roles and to the barracks.  Today, coup d’état is becoming attractive and the military juntas are staging a comeback in grand style to the jubilation and excitement of a segment of the population giving it a seal of approval as a relief.  The West African sub-region is the most hit with more than four countries in a row coming under the jackboot of military rule. 

The intensity of the assault on democracy is rising across Africa.  Most elected leaders soon become despotic and authoritarian and begin to infringe on the civil liberties of citizens.  Being in government has been reduced to corruptly amassing obscene wealth for personal aggrandizement while inflicting economic hardship and burden on the ordinary citizens.  

In most African countries, elected presidents have had their tenured terms elongated to remain in power as life presidents even when they have become incapacitated like the ancestor in Cameroon the gerontocratic Paul Biya, Ali Bongo of Gabon who has just been sacked by the military wing of the ruling class.  Others are living in presidential palaces like zombies and walking corpses and still would not let go of power.

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We have former military leaders who after staging coup d’état have transmuted and metamorphosed into life presidents in their countries by manipulating pliable rubber-stamped parliaments for tenure elongation: Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Abdel Fattah Elsisi of Egypt, Paul Kagami of Rwanda to name just a few. 

The common democratic phenomena and practice across Africa have always been unbridled corruption, flawed elections and rigged ballots, cronyism and nepotism.  This is in addition to pervasive insecurity that has enveloped the entire continent without exception, while terrorist organizations and non-state actors contest for space and authority with government.  Citizens have become common articles of merchandize of trade through kidnapping for ransom while state bureaucracy is run like organized crime. Are these the noble objectives and virtues of democracy that we should rise up to defend and if possible with arms?

What is the threat to democracy?  The military does not appear to be the threat to democracy in Africa.  The greatest threat to democracy is the anti-democratic behaviours of elected government and representatives who care less about the welfare and well-being of the people. We are talking of government officials who abuse the authorities of their offices, mismanaging the huge wealth and resources of our countries. 

Africa has remained poor and underdeveloped due to bad governance and poor inept political leadership that are not creative in any way.  We cannot build and maintain infrastructure, we cannot feed our population with rich arable land; we are technologically backward because we prefer to import readymade goods and services from advanced economies at a huge cost.  Our universities and colleges of technologies are still graduating only clerks, administrators and poorly trained maintenance staff.  Today the Chinese and Indians have taken over the hub of our industries, construction and mining using our graduates and unemployed youths to carry head pans and to mix concrete.   

The African Union and its sub-regional affiliates like ECOWAS should not even be scared of coup d’état now but should be worried about the revolution of the army of unemployed restive youths whose adrenaline will soon snap. When elected leaders cannot offer leadership and choose to become despotic and suppress civil liberties of the people, it becomes an incentive to its military wing to usurp power. That was what happened in Niger and Gabon with growing fear in other countries that have gone into panic mode sacking their senior military officers.

Africa is sinking in debt going to international financial institutions to borrow money at huge interest rate which they come back home to use to pay salaries and share the balance. This is what our leaders tell the citizens that it is an achievement of their government, incurring debt! They award and inflate contracts that are not executed and siphon the money to offshore accounts to buy properties abroad.  We cannot continue like this without something giving way; African Union cannot defend this and ECOWAS cannot take up arms to defend this.  Corruption is so pervasive that government has become an institution of patronage with scant regards to merit thereby enthroning nepotism and mediocrity.  Government officials and their minions live large and flaunt their obscene wealth recklessly in the face of pervasive poverty. 

This is the situation that has become incubator for revolution not through ballot but often times through unconstitutional means of military coup d’état.  The clique that have hijacked power are using it to oppress the poor and you cannot defend this in the name of restoring constitutional democracy just to protect one individual interest as in Niger.  ECOWAS should perish the threat of using its standby force and resist the invitation of France to be used to fight a proxy war.  We should deploy our forces to fight a more noble cause in the region like insurgency and terrorism, poverty, disease and unemployment and ignorance. The stifling sanctions on the junta government may well be enough if at all it is well-deserving, given the circumstances.  Faced with humiliation, France appears fixated on its colonial grip and economic benefit from the mineral wealth of harvesting uranium from Niger and has remained intransigent insisting that it does not recognize the legitimacy of the usurper military junta. France wants to lure the ECOWAS to fight a proxy war and our leaders must resist that. 

The legitimacy of a government is rooted on the sovereignty derived from its citizens.  A country does not sign out its sovereignty through bilateral agreement through protocols and conventions. It therefore does not matter whatever agreement the Nigerien government may have entered with any government or institutions; legitimacy of the government is from the people.  As it stands today, the junta remains the de facto government and it is enjoying broad based support from the citizens who are daily questioning the French presence in their country. 

The junta have declared the French ambassador to Niamey persona non grata given him 48 hours to leave Niger. France has to come to terms with the fact that Niger, poor as it may be, is no longer a colony but a republic that does not want to be tied to the apron string of France any longer.  The United Nations Charter recognizes the sovereign equality of nations, big and small and no country has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of another sovereign state in the name of collective action.

While it is good to defend democracy, it is also important that elected representatives of the people respect the rule of law and democratic norms. The people also have the right, absolutely to engage an elected government whenever it ceases to represent their interest; it could be through ballot revolution or legitimate street protests. When you muscle the citizens and make peaceful change impossible, you make a violent change inevitable.  When the political class wears the visor of dictatorship and take away the civil liberties of the people, the citizens would be too happy to embrace soldiers as lesser evils.

Under a democracy, an elected or appointed leader is barking orders and threatening to pull down structures without recourse to due process of law and talking down on citizens and you want to defend that as democracy; I am afraid, no!  Sovereignty belongs to the people not one individual who has lost the support of the people.  The African Union and ECOWAS should defend the principle of democracy and not imposed democracy by coercion to defend an individual.

• Kebonkwu Esq, an attorney, writes from Abuja.