Mthobeli Jiwulane

The African Union through its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, long established a mechanism to stop military coups and other forms of power takeover on the continent – but the scourge of military coups is back in a big way in Africa.

Coups continue to happen in Africa despite the efforts by the AU to put a stop to them. The Lome Declaration on the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government, as it is known, was signed in 2000. The declaration is unequivocal in its opposition to the removal of the democratically elected governments through a military coup d’etat, mercenary actions, armed dissent groups and rebel movements. The definition included the refusal by the incumbent government to relinquish power to the winning political party after free, fair and regular elections.

But in spite of this, there had been a spike in the coups in Africa lately. However, the instances of military coups had dramatically dropped on the continent compared to the previous times. For years after independence in most Africa states, the continent was hit by a series of military coups particularly in West Africa. This prompted the OAU to seek a solution to the problem, culminating in the Lome Declaration.

The idea of the agreement was to prevent coups from happening. They seemed to be dying a natural death since Lome, and there was hope that the battle was being won. But it’s back to square one and Addis Ababa has got this hot potato on its lap.

The question being asked by experts and many others had been whether Africa, the AU to be specific, was losing the war against coups? It appears the continent’s top regional body had no assertive strategy to stamp its authority against military coups. Its approach had been to prevent coups from happening including suspending the membership of the country concerned from the AU and refusing to recognise the new military government. However, this had not stopped military takeover from happening.

Military coups occurred in succession recently in West Africa and the last one in Gabon was the eighth military takeover in three years. Gabon followed soon after Niger in what became a domino-effect. All the coups had one thing in common, they have huge public support, which emboldened the army in Niger to order France and its military to vacate the country as soon as possible.

There is a general consensus in various societies in Africa that the recent coups have a good new spin to them. The coup leaders came on the ticket of fighting colonialism or neo-colonialism specifically, and especially being anti-France, which was the only colonial power that still kept a physical presence and dominant influence on its former colonies in Africa, who also have to pay “colonial tax” to Paris.

The military in several countries, instead of kow-towing to France following the coups, they expelled French forces especially in Niger, where 15 000 French defence force members were stationed ostensibly to look after French interests including its access to that country’s military resources. But this does not nullify the fact that coups are not only disruptive towards democracy but are also unconstitutional.

According to scholars L. Motsomotso and her fellows at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria, the period immediately post-2000 (Lome Declaration), the coups had subsided and even dropped to almost zero at one stage in Africa, but had recurred subsequently.

But as if this was not enough, now the tide had turned with a new spike post-Covid 19, which happened beyond the period the period that the UNISA experts undertook their research.

Motsomotso et al, were of the view that the “prevention of military coups should mean strategies that are put in place should be enforceable and adhered to”. “The paradox that Africa faces in relation to political change is that the institutions that should engender democracy and strong sense of constitutionalism predicated on political will are often undermined. Military coups have been a major factor that creates the reversal of institutional mechanisms of democracy,” they wrote.

In the book, ‘Political Change in Contemporary Africa’, the experts also cited the occurrence and recurrence of the military coups as tending to justify the unconstitutional form of taking over power as the most preferred method in Africa. They also considered the question of democratically elected leaders who overstayed their welcome and even went to the extent of amending the constitution to extend their stay in power.

Africa had some of the longest serving heads of state in the world with Gabon ruled by the now-overthrown Bongo dynasty since 1967, a whopping 50 decades plus. But does this justify an unconstitutional takeover by the military? There are many views for and against this view, at different levels, depending on where one stood regarding with regards to the perceived agenda of the latest coups.

But there was a widespread condemnation of the decision by the Economic Community of West Africa, a regional economic body led currently by Nigeria, to want to intervene militarily in Niger to remove the military junta there. Many suggested that the matter should be resolved through negotiations but ECOWAS, with pressure from the West, insists on a military action. But there is no provision for such military intervention in the AU’ strategy to stop coups, but the organisation sought negotiations, followed by democratic elections and sending the military to the barracks after the new civilian government assumed the reigns.

There is fear that the outcome of the ECOWAS military intervention decision could be dire for West Africa as a while. It could see good neighbours, Niger and Nigeria fighting each other basically or pitting African against African in a Western proxy war for Niger’s mineral resources exploited by the West. European countries and the USA nuclear arms are built with Nigerien uranium, the main interest of the Paris, Washington and Brussels to support the envisaged unprecedented ECOWAS military action. The fears also revolved around the possible outbreak of a refugee crisis in West Africa and the resultant political stability that could saddle the continent, already reeling under the weight of its existing refuge issues. Most importantly, Nigeria and Niger, which currently had cordial relations, could not avoid a direct confrontation with each other if the war were happened. Some of the ousted presidents with ECOWAS backing, reportedly approached the African Union to help them remove the juntas, contrary to the AU’s approach to ensure the continent solve its problem by itself with no external intervention.

But the possible involvement of the military-led Mali and Burkina Faso in the fiasco, which both threatened to help Niger to fight against ECOWAS, brings another dimension to the situation. Also, the Russia’s Wagner group is already in the region training Malians and this complicates the environment. Could it be that another Ukraine-like war is building up in West Africa? However, there is hope now that France was talking about negotiating its exit from Niger including pulling out some or all of its forces from the country. It could not go to war if that happens.

The French factor is another contentious issue that raised debates about whether these coups are justified as they served a good course for Africa. Some say the military juntas had shortened the fight to end neo-colonialism and continued exploitation and “looting” of African resources by European former colonial masters, something that the old guard of civilian African leaders failed to do.

Whether AU would swallow that and let the coups run, remains to be seen, but that would be acting against its own principle of seeking to democratise, not militarise, the continent.