Accra, Ghana//-The recent military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea have generated discussions on the media, on the streets and other several platforms as to whether the West African sub-region will ever jettisoned its coup mentality.
Although most of the counties in that sub-region are above 60 years old, they are still struggling to move away from military takeovers.
Causes coups
The current coups in West Africa have been attributed to amalgamation of various social, political and economic factors which need serious minds to be addressed holistically.
Security and development experts who are not enthused with the current military mutinies noted that severe economic and social conditions coupled with widespread corruption, conflict and post-conflict scenarios, and a growing culture of impunity could also be the drivers of criminal gangs standing out to be counted but in a negative way.
So it is no wonder that West Africa has been described by many experts and scholars as the most coup-ridden sub-region in the world, with piracy in the Gulf of Guinea emerging as the biggest threat to economic stability.
Furthermore, the rise of criminal gangs and military coups is that many West African leaders have done little to enact and implement laws that promote inclusive policies geared towards addressing widening poverty and food scarcity.
Sadly though, the 15 ECOWAS states are among the poorest countries on the planet, and 13 of them are among the top-50 poorest countries of the world, according to the United Nations 2011 Report. It is sad because that bloc can boast of the most arable land for crop cultivation and animal production.
Indeed, abject poverty, military coups d’états, political autocracies, widespread corruption, impunity, families and friends system of governance and foreign meddling have all further turned the dreams of an economically integrated and politically united West Africa into a living nightmare for most of its citizens.
The negative impact of military coups on social-economic development of the sub-region cannot be quantified, much as the phenomenon is very disturbing.
Regrettably, several coups and counter-coups have fueled avoidable civil wars in countries notably, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali and Guinea Bissau which claimed several lives and properties in those countries.
They have also devastated the economies of these countries which they are making frantic efforts to resuscitate.
Military captain Sidsoré Kader Ouedraogo said the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration “has decided to assume its responsibilities before history.”
In a statement, he said soldiers were putting an end to Kaboré’s presidency because of the deteriorating security situation amid the deepening Islamic insurgency and the president’s inability to manage the crisis.
Similarly, in Guinea, Mali, and Chad, ruling elites have detached themselves from the people they ostensibly governed. They are normally inundated with challenges to government authority ranging from radical Islamist reform movements that have widespread popular support to the negligence of COVID-19 consequences, among others.
In the most recent wave of military coups, transfers of power have tended to be within the ruling circle—a personnel reshuffling largely without social consequences or betterment for ordinary citizens especially the poor and vulnerable.
They are portrayed by anti-corruption rhetoric and little change in behaviour by those newly in charge. With the exception of Ghana’s 1979 coup which brought Jerry Rawlings to power, coups have not been the vehicle for social revolution, according to John Campbell, analyst.
Speaking on the Point of View program on Citi TV in Accra, Ghana in September last year, Dr. Abdul-Jalilu Ateka, a political science lecturer, cited failings from regional bodies with respect to Heads of States with dictatorial tendencies as contributing to the instability.
He took on the regional bodies for not doing anything beyond condemning such occurrences.
“The other aspect has to do with the failure or the inability of the African Union… to hold governments accountable as far as the term limits are concerned.”
“From the African Charter on Democracy, it states clearly that you cannot amend the constitution so what have the African Union and ECOWAS member states done? That is why I say it is their failure,” Dr. Ateka added.
Working to return to constitutional law
He also said the new military leaders would work to establish a calendar “acceptable to everyone” for holding new elections, without giving further details.[12] The West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, suspended Burkina Faso’s membership in the aftermath of the military coup.
Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba led the mutiny which ousted President Roch Kaboré promised a return to the normal constitutional order “when the conditions are right”.
In his first national speech since taking power on the eve of an emergency summit of West African leaders in Accra, Ghana, he blamed the president for failing to contain violence by Islamist militants
On Friday 28, January 2022, the regional bloc, ECOWAS, suspended Burkina Faso because of the military takeover.
The 15-member bloc also called for the immediate release from house arrest of the ousted president and other detained officials. The ECOWAS agreed to send a delegation to meet the coup leaders in the capital, Ouagadougou.
At the start of the virtual summit, Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said: “The resurgence of coup d’états in our region is in direct violation of our democratic tenets. It represents a threat to peace, security and stability in West-Africa.”
Present and successive Washington administrations, UK and EU have broadly condemned coups in the sub-region and other parts of the world.
Post-colonialism
In the immediate post-colonial period in Africa, from East to North, from West to South, many coups d’états occurred. This phenomenon in the post-independence phase was blamed on outside intervention during the Cold War.
The unconstitutional regime changes seemed to have reduced at the end of the Cold War when many African states embraced democracy, organized elections and acceded to international human rights laws and other international norms and principles, according to experts.
Unfortunately, for the past two decades, unconstitutional regime changes and ‘constitutional crises’ have gradually crept back into the African political landscape, happening in Madagascar, Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, the most recent.
How can these coups stop?
Retired Ghanaian diplomat, D.K. Osei urged ECOWAS and the African Union to focus on measures that prevent the instability.
“We know where the fault lines are and we know what can be done to prevent instability from occurring in a number of these countries.
This is the time for the leaders of the sub-region and this continent to take initiatives of a preventive nature to improve the political situation in the sub-region,” he said on a Point of View program on Citi TV in Accra, Ghana in September last year.
To add up, governments in the ECOWAS sub-region must enact and implement laws on smooth political transitions so as to avoid the needless military takeovers.
They should not also forget the low standard living conditions of the masses especially the youth who are constantly crying for social amenities in their communities.
While the governments as a matter of urgency should create employment opportunities for teeming unemployed youth in the sub-region.
Bottom line
If these measures are implemented religiously, the abominable and unwarranted military coups in the ECOWAS sub-region will be a thing of the past.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Editor, African Eye Report
