Date Published: 03/14/10

THE PARADOX OF A COUP DETAT By Dupe Atoki

The era of gun trotting ragtag ‘dogs of war killing machines’ and unconstitutional continuation of governments seem to be making a forceful comeback in Africa. This is posing a real dilemma for the African Union (AU) and its regional blocs. Leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Touré saw colonialism and apartheid as evil and the use of force was permissible to end its reign.  But their position raised intriguing and complex questions that has vexed the OAU now AU for decades. If one accepts the principle that Africans had the right to liberate the continent, what should we do when Africans violate the rights of Africans, manipulate the constitution and the voting system to stay in power? Should there be a superior essence that proscribed the rule of military non-intervention when blacks were oppressing blacks? Enter Niger, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar and Mauritania. Dare I say Zimbabwe and Kenya ?   

In the early morning of Thursday, 18 February 2010 , Niger one of the poorest nations of the world and with a shocking 70 percent illiteracy rate, became another fallen domino in Africa’s dishonourable roll call of military takeovers. But may be this time this was different. Or is it? Niger’s 77 year old President Mamadou Tandja had declared that his ‘people’ could not bear to see him go after ten years at the helm. So, when his two-term expired in December 2009, instead of gracefully stepping down, he suspended Parliament and rewarded himself extensive powers to rule by decree in violation to the country's constitution, despite regional and international pressures. Niger's opposition denounced Tandja antics as a “coup” Ecowas agreed and imposed sanctions against it. In October 2009, the AU endorsed the Ecowas move. 

Announcing the removal from power of the ageing dictator, Major Salou Djibo, the coup leader, suspended Parliament and the Supreme Court. He gave the usual refrain, denouncing Mr. Tandja of corruption and of running a dictatorship. For Major Salou Djibo counter coup, Niger was promptly suspended from both the AU and Ecowas.

In the case of Guinea, Conakry, the West African state has been limping aimlessly since 3 December 2009 when the leader of the military junta, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, was wounded in an assassination attempt by a former body guard. The coup came on the back of the hills when on 28 September 2009, over 150 people were killed when the junta ordered its soldiers to attack pro-democracy marchers. Concerned that the political predicament in Guinea could threaten a fragile West African region, the African Union (AU) imposed sanctions on the leaders of the junta in October 2009. Deputy leader of the junta and interim president, Gen. Sekouba Konate, pledged to pave the way for a return to civilian rule, more than a year after the military took power in a bloodless coup.

With Madagascar, Mr. Andry Rajoelina and his supporters had accused President, Marc Ravalomanana, of being a dictator who cares nothing about the people in one of the world’s poorest countries, where more than half of its 20 million people eke by on less than $1 a day. However, as far as the AU is concerned Madagascar is an unwelcome problem. Wishing to avert a prolonged political crisis and possible civil war, the country’s Constitutional Court, in collusion with the military took initiative of handing powers to 34-year old Andry Rajoelina, the opposition leader. Marc Ravalomanana was forced to quit office and hand over power to the leadership of the military – Africa’s first self-inflicted military coup. Of course, the AU condemned the coup and suspended Madagascar from its club.

The famous 1997 speech of Kofi Annan in Harare, Zimbabwe reflects the struggles of the AU. He said that: “Africa can no longer tolerate, and accept as fait accompli, coups against elected governments, and the illegal seizure of power by military cliques, who sometimes act for sectional interests, sometimes simply for their own. Armies exist to protect national sovereignty, not to train their guns on their own people … Verbal condemnation, though necessary and desirable, is not sufficient. We must also ostracize and isolate putschists. Neighbouring states, regional groupings, and the international community all must play their part.”

 With the coup in Niger, some commentators have called for a healthy dose of pragmatism in assessing this new phenomenon. In Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry and Niger, politics was characterised by sustained levels of political violence, dramatic economic decline,precipitated by widespread corruption and a lack of progress in political reform and purges of real and imagined enemies. Corruption has been the most endemic social problem that contributed to the escalation of the crises with public officers in government looting treasury with reckless abandon, at times when the political and economic infrastructure of those countries decayed. The result is that the root causes of the crises in many of these states reside with the nature of the African state as a dictatorial instrument of control and coercion with the purpose of guaranteeing surplus extraction for the state managers. The inevitable outcome was bloody internecine competition and conflict by groups who felt marginalised. 

The Au has no doubt put in place several treaties (to which almost all African States are signatories) which express its deep averment to unconstitutional change of government; this includes The Constitutive Act 2002, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights 1986, The Charter on Election, Democracy and Governance to name a few. The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights rising from an extra ordinary session in Banjul on the 3 rd of March passed a resolution on the human rights situation in Niger and called for immediate commencement of the hand over process to a democratic government. The challenge facing the AU at this season of seemingly return of military seizure of power is daunting. The call by Kofi Annan referred above to not only condemn but ‘ostracize and isolate putschists’ must be taken seriously and implemented.

If the “state” is an amalgam of individuals and groups, and the juridical entity then sovereignty rests with the individual or the peoples. They may turn over their sovereignty to the juridical entity as a condition for protection and to enable the 'state' to carry on its administrative and other functions. But it is only a loan held in trust, which can be called in when it is abused by the state. The writer is of the opinion that power is inherent in the people, belongs to the people and therefore at all times the right of delegation of same is unequivocal of the peoples. 

The very apt speech of Kofi Annan (referred to above) brings the writer to the intriguing nature of the paradox of coup d’état which is hereafter analysed in its very interesting diversity.

At the hills of condemnations of coups comes the partial welcome (clothed with hypocritical reluctance) of the junta with a restricted visa to remain and swiftly do the needful that is restore democratic governance and disappear. Opponents of unconstitutional change of government, speaking from both sides of the mouth condemn on one hand and condone on the other such unsolicited intervention. The junta far from doing the needful, changes its profession and takes up permanent residence. Ditto - Staff Sergeant Samuel Doe of Liberia: Col Muamman Abu Minya al Gaddafi of Libya: Col Nyansimgbe Eyadema of Togo: Brigadier Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir of Sudan and lieutenant Yahaya JJJ Jameh of The Gambia to mention a few.  

Coup plotters always badge in flying the messianic flag of salvation for the oppressed and freedom from Human rights abuses and corrupt governance. However in due course the raison d’être of these coups become extinct and the new leader’s gain of notoriety for oppression, corruption and violation of human rights soon assumes unimaginable proportion.

The debate as to whether military governments are (il)legal or should be recognised by other states has ceased from being jurisprudential and now  attracts international condemnation. While plotters of a failed coup are vilified as villains, their successful brothers are welcome albeit half-heartedly as messiahs with a welcome message. Political historian and Commentator Hans Kelson opine that: “All revolutions are legal when they have succeeded, and it is the success denoted by acquiescence which makes their constitution law.”  He argues that: “If the revolutionaries fail, if the order they had tried to establish remains inefficacious, their undertaking is interpreted, not as a legal, law-creating act … but as an illegal act, as the crime of treason.”

How apt!!! Indeed Nigerian history with its record of long military government intersperse by several failed and successful coups d’état has lost many army officers to alleged crime of treason. A grim reminder of the executions in 1976 of Bukar Sakar Dimkar, Major General I D Bissalla, Joe Gomwalk and others also in 1986 of the writer’s very dear friend, an outstanding military officer and a gentleman Col Michael Iyorshe, Gen Vatsa and .. Bitiyong to mention a few.

  The paradox of coup d’état indeed I daresay! To attempt a coup is to succeed. 
 

Dupe Atoki is a lawyer and a Commissioner in the African Union Commission on Human and Peoples Rights.