The July 26 army takeover in Niger, Nigeria’s closest northern neighbour, in more senses than one, led me back to Samuel Declan’s classic, “Coups And Army Rule In Africa”. I was still reading it when soldiers in Gabon struck on August 30, overthrowing a government that had been reelected, so called, to office only four days before. The Gabon misadventure would make the seventh coup in Africa in under three years – Mali 2021, Burkina Faso and Guinea 2022 and Niger and Gabon 2023. And Sudan too, don’t forget. The first five, all French speaking and former colonies of imperial France.
Declan’s very structured and elegantly written book examines the “etiology and morphology” of the army’s usurpation of political power in Africa, using five case studies of Congo, Benin, Uganda, Togo and Niger. ( Interestingly, the July 26th coup was Niger’s 5th successful coup d’etat since independence in 1960) Declan concludes that the motivations that “impelled military cliques to seize power” are several, ranging from “purely personal and/or selfish (Amin) to overwhelmingly altruistic and/or nationalist (Kountche).” He adds, “And the nature of the concrete motivations impelling military officers to the presidential palace was directly reflected in the nature of the military regime set up, its primary characteristics, governing style, and preoccupations.”
Besides what Declan says, the political structures that African countries contrived after independence encouraged sit-tightism as a means of self preservation in power and protecting pillaged state resources. This made peaceful regime change impossible and the only way to unseat an unpopular civilian government was through ‘indirect invitation’ to the military to intervene, using the force of the gun. In this, they are encouraged by the political opposition, tired of the ruling establishment’s self perpetuation antics.
Former Nigerian military president Ibrahim Babangida (1984-1993) was very clear on that point in an interview he granted American journalist Karl Maier for his book “this house has fallen: NIGERIA IN CRISIS” (2000). He said in the interview, “Nigerians always welcome military intervention because we (Nigerians) have not yet developed mentally the value and virtues of democracy.” He went on, describing the military as opportunistic. “You see, we are very smart people,” Babangida told his interviewer. “We don’t intervene when we know the climate is not good for it or the public will not welcome it. We wait until there is frustration in the society. In all the coups, you find there has always been one frustration or the other. Any time there is frustration, we step in. And then there is a demonstration welcoming the redeemers.” The military as redeemers! Arguable but this isa matter for another day.
Babangida admitted, in all the coups that had taken place in our nation since 1966, there were civilian collaborators: media tycoons, politicians who lost elections and businessmen who lost contracts. “We couldn’t have done it without collaborators in the civil society – collaborators in the media, collaborators among people who have the means. Because the means were not easily available but we received some from people who were convinced it was the right thing to do.” And the prize? “Of course, they normally get something back. The media is satisfied that they waged a war against a bad government, fought it to a standstill, and pulled it down. The elite who participate want recognition, maybe patronage as time goes by”, said the general who accepted the sobriquet “evil genius”.
Yes, we have seen the politician’s hand too in all the coups that have occurred up to date in Africa. In Gabon, the man who lost an election against deposed president Ali Bongo has been made an interim prime minister by the new men in power. In our case, politicians who lost the February 25 presidential election came close to calling for a coup when they asked that the outcome be annulled and an interim government installed. This, even when they knew that the constitution does not provide for one.
Now, we know that without the collaboration of a part of the political class and an “enabling climate”, coups should be next to an impossibility. To stop ambitious soldiers from attempting to dislodge elected governments, politicians must learn to play by the rules of the game. Elections must be won or lost on an open and level play-field and victory should truly be the expressed will of the majority. Rulers should stop perpetuating themselves in office by periodically amending the constitution to obtain term elongation. This way, no one will gain power through some subterfuge and under hand ways or feel undone by an unfair system.
It says a lot that the coup in Gabon was against a president whose family had monopolized power for 50 years. Other sit-tight leaders have seen the handwriting on the wall and are overhauling their military high commands, taking out generals whose loyalty is suspect and replacing them with handbag carrying officers. But they must know that they are only postponing the Ides of March. Remember, the soldier who is now in power in Gabon is the sacked president’s cousin. Personal interest is, sometimes, stronger than family bond.
Another point to note is that all the coups executed between 2020 and now have been carried out by presidential guards, special forces, created, supplied and maintained by civilian presidents to protect them. What an irony, their creation has become a Frankenstein, preying on the master. This contradiction leads us to the greater question whether we, in Africa, do need the huge armies our colonial masters have left us with. Without them, there will be fewer border clashes or none at all, no wars between sisterly countries. Deprived of a false feeling of military power, we will stop spoiling for a fight. We will stop foreign defence contractors from flooding our continent with arms with which to fight and kill and maim our peoples. There will, perhaps, be funds spared to build schools, hospitals and roads for ourselves. There will be cleaner and safer water to drink and wash with. Our lifespan will increase, and so our wellbeing. Perhaps. Perhaps.
