BURKINA FASO AND THE COUP BUG
Leaders in West Africa must do more to stem the new wave of coups in the subregion
The military takeover of government in Burkina Faso is the culmination of months of political unrest in the country. The ousted and detained President Roch Kaboré had been confronted with frequent protests on the streets of Ouagadougou following worsening economic and living conditions. In addition, the populace and the political opposition had voiced dissatisfaction with his handling of both the economy and jihadist insurgency in parts of the country. These were the effective backdrop to this latest of West Africa’s resurgence of military dictatorship.
It is indeed very instructive that the putsch in Burkina Faso is coming on the heels of similar military coups in Mali, Guinea, Chad, and Sudan. In all these countries, the developments that toppled the democratic governments are virtually similar. Popular uprising fuelled by increasingly harsh economic conditions have been exacerbated by partisan squabbles among politicians. This has played into the hands of ambitious military officers waiting in the wings. In each of these cases also, the coup makers are descendants of earlier military adventurers in power. A tradition of politicised military establishment has left generations of officers who see the presidential palace as an alternative habitat to the barrack. A country without entrenched civil democratic institutions and in which critical agencies of national security have been privatised by successive political regimes lends itself to frequent upheavals of power.
The more frightening feature of these recent political disruptions is the recurrence of Jihadist insurgency in the Sahel as a factor among the excuses of coup makers. This is what should concern authorities within the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) and particularly Nigeria. Except perhaps in Sudan where the coup resulted from long standing internal political quarrels, insurgency has featured as a reason for the military takeover in Mali, Guinea, Chad and now Burkina Faso. Jihadist elements have mounted unrelenting military pressure on the governments of all these countries and in some cases infiltrated the armed and security forces.
In a sense, the recent rapid changes of government in West Africa may appear like indirect ‘victories’ for the jihadist forces bent on destabilising the sub-region except that the military regimes are coming to power with agenda that differ from the global agenda of the jihadist movement. In Mali, Guinea, Chad and now Burkina Faso, insurgencies have caused severe economic hardship by constricting agricultural land space and forcing population movements and severe humanitarian crisis. These have been exacerbated by climate change and the southward expansion of the Sahara Desert.
However, one disturbing feature of the recent coups is an indication that in most African countries, democracy remains so fragile that the people do not put up any fight when these military opportunists seize power. In fact, there have been jubilations in some cases. Partisan squabbles among self-serving politicians tend to spiral into wild protests in the streets inhabited by economically vulnerable populations. These ‘people of the streets’ and their economic travails become ready tinder for the opponents of the party in power. Civil unrest over bad conditions graduates into political capital for politicised military officers. When those in power abuse the trust of their people under such combustible climate, the rest is predictable.
With violent banditry in the Northwest combining with a never-ending insurgency in the Northeast, the federal government must be concerned about the wave of recent coups in the subregion. It ought also to concern the United Nations that democracy and global stability is under clear and present danger in West Africa. ECOWAS is even more severely tasked by these coups. Closures of land and air corridors by countries that lack the mechanism to enforce embargoes and sanctions can only pass as laughable reflexes. A network of cross border illegal traders and semiofficial channels serve the needs of gangster regimes that are intent on clinging to power at all costs. Defiance of regional diplomatic sanctions becomes routine. The military regimes dig in and entrench themselves. Democracy suffers deadly setbacks and Africa once again retreats on all indices of global development.
