Bola A. Akinterinwa
Jean-Baptiste Duroselle was Professor of Diplomatic History at the University of Paris 1, Panthéon Sorbonne in France. Amongst his many famous publications are Histoire Diplomatique de 1919 à nos jours (Diplomatic History From 1919 Till Now), which was first published in 1953 as an update to Professor Jacques Droz’s Histoire Diplomatique de 1648 à 1919 (Diplomatic History from 1648 to 1919) and ‘Tout Empire Périra’ meaning ‘Every Empire Shall Perish.’
When he propounded this theory of every empire that has a beginning must also have an end, he probably did not contemplate a quick end to the French Empire especially that the French Fifth Republican Constitution validated the privileges of French citizenship conferred in 1944 on the colonial dependants in Congo Brazzaville. The French Community established under General Charles de Gaulle was meant to ensure that the colonies remain under perpetual French influence in the post-independence era.
While Professor Duroselle strongly believed that every empire, every hegemony by implication, must witness an end, he did not explain how the end will come to be. What is indisputable as at today is that French imperialism appears to be on the path of désuétude in Africa and it is coming to an end through anti-French coups d’état in France’s former colonies in Africa. Most unfortunately, animosity vis-à-vis the conception of a French Community began ever before coup-making in recent times with Guinea (Conakry) which refused to be part of the French Community at its inception.
France, in reaction, later took punitive measures against Guinea, but that did not end the Guinean animosity and the mutual suspicions that followed, but only delayed their open manifestations. The animosity has now become an open secret with many countries playing host to coups and straining their diplomatic ties with France. Explained differently, France is ceasing to remain a household name. In fact, France is now a persona non grata in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger Republic. Is this the beginning of the end of French influence in Africa and possibly in the world? Is the theory of every empire shall perish coming into application in the context of Franco-African relations? From the historiography of France’s relations with Francophone Africa, it appears the animosity vis-à-vis France in Africa is on the increase since 2020. The return of coups-making in Francophone West and Central Africa clearly points to this observation.
Dynamics of the Animosity
The dynamics have an external and internal character. At the external level, the first dynamic is foreign intervention. France has a policy of intervention in Africa based on purported kind invitation of incumbent Francophone African governments. In response to Nigeria’s hostile policy to foreign military interventions in Africa, France explained that she has always been in Africa on the invitation of the legitimate governments in power which have always invited France based on the exercise of their political sovereignty. This means that Nigeria cannot act on behalf of the countries playing host to the French.
The problem here is that, on the one hand, France’s argument is quite logical and tenable, as she has the support of the host government while, on the other hand, Nigeria, which has Africa as the centrepiece of her foreign policy and therefore having the obligation to defend and protect Africa’s continental interest, cannot but have limitations in compelling any other sovereign country not to act in compliance with the national interests of the country. More importantly, French presence in any country enables the deepening of relationship with influential politicians, cultivation of pro-France politicians and allies, and eventually the use of such allies to undermine the polity whenever the protection of French politico-economic interests is at stake. In this case, the pro-foreigners are necessarily agents of coup-making. The planned intervention by the ECOWAS to restore the government of Mohammed Bazoum in Niger Republic is quite relevant here.
On the basis of non-acceptance of unconstitutional changes of government in Africa, and particularly in the West African region, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decided to use military force to restore constitutional order and bring the ousted President of Niger, Mohammed Bazoum, to power. For various considerations, particularly the domestic hostility to the use of force to settle the crisis, the ECOWAS has been compelled to make haste slowly.
A second dynamic is the issue of order and counter-order as instrument of sustaining coups. It prolongs the stay of military junta in power. For instance, and more interestingly, the reaction of the military junta to ECOWAS threats has raised a new dust in the controversial coup. The leader of the junta, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, in responding to the ECOWAS Chairman, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT), GCFR, of Nigeria, reportedly told him that, ‘Your Government is Illegitimate, I Will Not Listen to You.’ This statement does not clearly show which government is illegitimate: is it Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency of Nigeria or his chairmanship of the ECOWAS? Whatever is the case, it can be inferred that General Abdourahamane Tchiani might be thinking of the court case challenging the election of Bola Tinubu as President of Nigeria. This is simply to imply that an illegitimate president of Nigeria cannot have the locus standi to be challenging another presumed illegitimate government in Niger Republic.
Additionally, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, also raised the issue of illegitimacy differently in his keynote address at the public presentation last week of a book entitled, ‘International Humanitarian Law and Armed Conflicts: An African Perspective.’ In the words of the Senior Advocate, ‘the international community never came to dictate to us how to govern ourselves during instances of military interventions. We have no moral authority to go and intervene in another sovereign State’s internal affairs.’ As tenable as this argument may be, the need to also ask what happens to the obligation created by Niger Republic’s membership of the ECOWAS as a supranational authority? When there is conflict of interest between an ECOWAS-created obligation which should be respected in the spirit of the rule of pacta sunt servanda, and obligation of national sovereignty, how do we explain the concession of part of Niger’s sovereignty to the ECOWAS Authority? Is the Niger Republic a Dualist or a Monist State on the basis of international law?
Whatever is the case, on Wednesday, September 6, 2023 when PBAT marked his first 100 days in office, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) dismissed all the petitions against PBAT on various grounds of lack of merit and technical considerations. This means that no one can rightly consider for now that the PBAT administration is illegitimate even if the petitioners intend to appeal against the PEPC judgment at the Supreme Court.
A third dimension of the external causal factor is establishment of military bases in Africa. Military bases constitute a major instrument of protection for cronies in power apart from assisting in the defence of national security and protection of political sovereignty in the host country. Generally, military bases are a resultant of bilateral or plurilateral defence agreements. Troops can always be flown from the military bases to carry out attacks in another country.
Recall here the 17 January, 1977 French Opération Crevette (Operation Shrimp) which was put in place to oust the Government of the People’s Republic of Benin, a communist party led by Mathieu Kérékou. President Kérékou was a proponent of Marxism-Leninist principles which France and its western allies contest in their anti-Soviet Cold War strategic calculations. President Kérékou came to power following a coup d’état in 1972 and reigned until 1991. During his tenure as president, political governance was guided by Marxist and Leninist principles. His Revolutionary Party of Benin (RPB) was the only recognised political party in the country. In essence, France was not happy with a pro-Soviet Communist or with Kérékou’s People’s Republic of Benin. It is against this anti-communism that the 1977 coup d’état was organised. However, it failed. In fact, the name of the country was changed from Republic of Dahomey to People’s Republic of Benin and this remained so until of 1991. The new name was irritating for France.
For other reasons, President…. lost in the March 1996 elections, enabling former President Kérékou to regain the presidency and to govern the country with the old name, Republic of Benin, until 2006.
Ending Coups: Quo Vadis?
A coup d’état is a method of electioneering that is generally considered as anti-democratic and therefore as uncivilised and unacceptable, especially since Africa appears to have accepted the democratisation fever as a new way of life since the Franco-African summit in La Baule in France in 1990. Put differently, the world does not entertain the use of force to get to power but only by choice of the people expressed through electoral balloting.
As good as this democratic election may be, it is more often than not always fraught with fraudulent attitudinal dispositions, especially in terms of policy design and implementation. Election rigging has become part of political culture in Africa. So is sit-tight politics through constitutional manoeuvres. And most unfortunately too, when elected people get to power, they easily and quickly forget that the mania of their election was fraudulent. They begin to govern on the basis of don’t-care policies. This is one major irritant that often infuriates the people, especially when the policies have very negative impact on them.
Still at the external level, African leaders must decide on the need to stop unwarranted foreign interventions in Africa, by particularly ending all defence pacts with extra-African powers. Defence pacts with extra-African powers, and even inter-African defence pacts make very little or no sense. For instance, how do we explain the quest of continental unity, and oneness of purpose? How do we explain the quest to act jointly or speak with one voice in foreign policy matters and at the same time be holding the perception of another African country as a potential aggressor?
We are not unaware of possible territorial disputes between and amongst States. The Chado-Libyan dispute over the Aouzou strip is a case in point. The Nigerian-Cameroonian dispute over the Bakassi peninsula, the manifestation of which prompted the killing of five Nigerian naval officers and the public request for military retaliation under the Shehu Shagari administration in April, 1981is another case in point. The issue in this case is that African leaders are preaching the sermons of United States of Africa, union of Governments in Africa but are taking arms to fight themselves over territories. They preach the sermons of regional and continental integration but are also enforcing national protective policy measures. Xenophobia reigns amongst the peoples. African prioritise foreign cultures to the detriment of their own cultures.
There was the time Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, former President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to September 7, 1997, came with Zaireanisation or authenticity. He changed the name of the country from The Congo to Zaire in 1971. He jettisoned his own name, Joseph-Désiré, which was given to him at birth to Mobutu Sesse Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga and compelled all the Zaireans to adopt more of indigenous African names in order to make them have a sense of self-identification, to promote African culture, and earn international respect. In fact, he came up with an official ideology of ‘l’authenticité’, that is ‘Zaireanisation’ on 27 October 1971 with the ultimate objective of cleansing the lingering vestiges of colonialism and stopping the deepening western influence. Zaireanisation policy banned the use of Christian names in favour of authentic African names. Many cities were renamed.
Western-style attires were banned. Zaire then had its own peculiarity and national identity.
Even though the promotion of indigenous identity was jettisoned by the end of the 1980s, what type of identity has the Congo Kinshasa as at today? Is there any promotion of true African identity elsewhere? To what extent can we even talk about enduring national identity? Without any jot of doubt, coup-making is another expression of lack of identity, unity of purpose, and bad governance. Any attempt to put a lasting end to coups in Africa cannot but require investigating the aspect of external impact on political governance in Africa. The impact is generally more negative than positive.
When people are conscious of their common identity, conscious of their common heritage, the extent to which they can be dreaming of mutual annihilation cannot but be reduced. Common identity promotes unconscious togetherness and limits sadism and promotes altruism. And by implication, it eradicates thoughts about coup-making.
And perhaps more interestingly, former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Okikiola Obasanjo, GCFR, reportedly suggested last week the need for Africans to revisit the idea of democracy in Africa and investigate the extent to which it has been helpful to Africa. As he reportedly put, ‘…we have a situation where we have a continent where we have to rethink democracy. The liberal democracy we are copying from settled societies in the West won’t work for us.’
In this case, the redefinition of democracy, the identification of the democratic system that can serve as an antidote to coup-making in Africa, can be another way of containing coup-making in the long term. In Nigeria, for example, presidential democracy is too expensive to manage in Nigeria. The environmental conditionings that make presidential system work well in the United States are not necessarily the same as in Nigeria. There is corruption in the United States but it is not fantastic the way it is said to be in Nigeria. Political fraud is not seen as a big deal. In fact, it has become fashionable in Nigeria, but it is not so elsewhere.
Again, would a semi-presidential system be better? Will going back to the old parliamentary democracy under Nigeria’s First Republic be better? What about having an elected government constituted on the basis of electoral proportionality? The principle of proportionality has it that the number of representatives or number of people to qualify to be part of an elected government should be determined by the number of votes scored. In this regard, 100,000 votes can qualify a political party for a seat in the National Assembly or in Government.
Thus, with the principle of proportionality, it is always a sort of win-win situation. The loser can only be a political party that cannot win 100,000 votes required to qualify for a seat. Besides, this rule of proportionality necessarily neutralises the option of winner takes all. Winning to take all the advantages can be a remote dynamic of coup-making. In essence, it is the perception of unfairness, injustice in political governance that is often responsible for grievances and eventually for coup-making. Consequently, we do agree with Chief Obasanjo’s suggestion of the need to investigate the notion and conception of democracy in Africa because there is nothing to suggest that revisiting the idea of democracy in Africa cannot be an anti-coup pillar in the foreseeable future.
And true enough, Chief Obasanjo’s suggestion is a very critical challenge that has been thrown to the socio-political academics in Nigeria. If the reasons why democracy works well elsewhere and does not work well in Nigeria are made known, then all political stakeholders can begin to learn lessons from report of the inquirers of the nature of democracy in Africa. The final finding cannot but be part of the educational curricula in schools and colleges. And most importantly, it cannot but also make little or no sense to have a problematic and challenges on hand and then still refuse to try different means of solving them. Problems exist so as to have them addressed. Chief Obasanjo’s call is therefore very patriotic. The ball is therefore in the court of all the politologists and social scientists.
From the foregoing, there cannot be a single solution to coup making in Africa unless attention is focused on the root causes of bad governance. Bad governance is a function of several reasons: political chicanery, ethnic jingoism, economic kleptomania, attitudinal recklessness, wrong development policies, unfairness and injustice in the allocation of national resources, double-standard-driven political governance, me-tooism, extra-African mainmise, puppet voluntarism, misuse of politics, and misunderstanding of democracy as an instrument of economic growth and development. All these causal factors must first be addressed before there can be a correct frame of mind to throw coups into the dustbin of history coups d’état. These causal factors can be simultaneously addressed if the cancerous minds of professional politicians are first healed by training their minds to accept that politics is a priori a service to the people and not for money-making or do-or-die business. Most importantly, what constitutes an unconstitutional change of government as defined by the AU and the ECOWAS must be reviewed lato sensu to include settlement of any controversial election result before legitimacy is duly conferred on a newly elected government. Thus, whether French dynasty can come to an end now or later largely depends on how long the anti-French leaders will be in power and on the extent to which France is able to quickly douse the tension bearing in mind the popular support of the people.
