Why coups are not an option

In recent years, the spectacle of military coups (both successful and failed) in West and Central Africa seems to have led many to wonder whether these takeovers are staging a comeback a couple of decades after they seemed to have gone out of fashion.

Of the 13 coups recorded globally since 2017, all but one – Myanmar in February 2021 – have been in Africa. This year has seen a successful coup in Burkina Faso and an attempted coup in Guinea Bissau.

While each coup has its own dynamics and background, the reality of a domino effect cannot be dismissed.

After all, since the wave of political independence from European colonial powers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, sub-Saharan Africa seems to have gone through a number of political cycles that seem infectious, with almost everyone else catching a cold when one country coughed.

Independence wave

Ghana’s independence in 1957 clearly ignited a flame that refused to be doused, inspiring (in large part), as many as 17 countries on the continent to gain independence in 1960 alone.

The establishment in 1963 of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) had 32 signatories, all independent countries pushing collectively for the total liberation of the African continent.

The immediate post-independence era saw the establishment of one-party states across the board, ditching the multi-party democracy that their former colonial overlords held in great esteem and left them.

Perhaps the rebellion was a collective repugnance of the hypocritical Western political model, which, despite its proclamations about liberty and human rights, had overseen slavery and then colonialism (the Belgian and Portuguese variants were particularly harsh and brutal), which robbed the African of his dignity and self-worth.

In this mass drive towards away from Western models, Africa, despite its declaration of being non-aligned, found itself in many cases as pawns in the Cold War of the era, as the East and West fought for the continent’s political soul for strategic purposes.

Era of coups

In 1963, a military coup by Togo’s Gnassigbe Eyadema sparked a tidal wave of military coups in sub-Saharan Africa.

An average of 25 coup d’états took place on African soil every decade from the 60s to the 90s.

In fact, of the 32 countries that signed the OAU charter in 1963, 26 had experienced military coups by the end of the 90s, most of them more than once. Ghana experienced five successful coups (including a palace coup) in that period (1966,1972,1978, 1979 and 1981).

Interestingly, East and Southern Africa largely refused to catch the coup bug.

In the 1990s, the political axis of the continent seemed to tilt towards multi-party democracy, around the same time that the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries seemed to disintegrate in the face of pro-democracy mass movements.

Suddenly, military adventurism no longer was attractive or popular, and the soldiers retreated to the barracks as elections, however fractured, rather than the gun, became the standard mechanism by which aspirants ascended to power.

Comeback?

Recent developments led the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to voice concern in September 2021 that “military coups are back,” while recently ECOWAS, under the chairmanship of President Akufo-Addo, met in Accra to discuss the issue.

Of course, it only makes sense for a man whose neighbour’s house is on fire to take note and take measures to ensure that should the wind blow in the direction of his house, the house would not be swallowed in the conflagration.

The state has an important and serious duty to protect us all from the threat of military insurgency.

Growing up

I was only 11 years old when J J Rawlings (a.k.a ‘Junior Jesus’) seized power in June 1979 to chants of ‘let the blood flow!!’ by many youthful citizens, but I recall many of the incidents that took place.

The next three frenzied months were characterised by public whipping of traders accused of selling goods ‘above control price’, the execution of eight generals, brutalities against citizens and many more.

The blood really did flow.

In the ‘revolution’ following the 1981 takeover, the muzzling of the media, a clampdown on human rights and freedoms, dawn-to-dusk curfews and the detention without trial of many prominent persons, a clampdown on some religious activities, the collapse of many businesses as well as a general fear in the country was pervasive.

I do not know anyone who grew up in this era who for a minute wishes a return to those days for any reason.

Rose-tinted views

There is a genuine yearning by many of our citizens for a change to the political, social and economic structures of our country to make it a better place for us all.

It makes a great deal of sense because we can be in a far better place than we are now.

But the agent for that change does not, and cannot, in my view, possibly include a military takeover, however rickety our democracy is.

I appreciate many younger people who have never experienced a coup looking at our past through rose-tinted sunglasses via filtered oral tradition that speak of a glorious past when soldiers came as knights in shining armour and instilled ‘discipline’ into the body politic. But it is a false narrative that belies the brutal reality.

For one, military coups do nothing to bring about the change many of us rightly desire.

Since 1966, the band of merry, wild-eyed assorted liberators, redeemers and revolutionaries that have seized power at dawn and woken us up to martial music and terse announcements have done little or nothing to turn our country around as promised, and in many cases, have been worse than the politicians they cursed upon the takeover.

It cannot be that the barrel of the gun represents the best route to competent governance.

Governance

There is absolutely no denying the fact that we have a lot of work to do to improve our governance structures and processes and improve the lives of our people.

That must come through serious activism by non-state actors and a collective will and urgency to build this country through its institutions.

Military coups cannot be on the menu for change. Like the Israelites of old, we have come too far to return to the dark days of Pharaoh.