ISSUES IN THE FOILED CHADIAN COUP
Democracy is increasingly under threat on the continent
No fewer than 19 armed fighters were reportedly killed in Chad last week, following an abortive attempt to storm the presidential complex in the capital N’Djamena. According to the Chadian government, 18 of the 24 gunmen were killed in the failed mutiny while one member of the security forces also died in the gun battles. Being one of the French colonies in Africa that have been battling Jihadist onslaught in the Sahel, the foiled coup poses another challenge to the country, and indeed the continent.
According to reports, the failed coup culminated from months of dissatisfaction with the management of the economy, and the jihadist insurgency that seems to be defying solutions. There were also the backdrop to the resurgence of military coups in other former French colonies on the continent. Only last month, Chad ended its security arrangement with France, asking their military personnel to vacate its territory, thus joining Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in throwing out their former colonial masters.
Chad has a peculiar political arrangement. President Idriss Déby Itno has been the leader of the country since 2021, following the death of his father who had ruled the country for 31 years. He was first President of the Transitional Military Council, then Transitional President before he won a predictable election last year. But it ought to concern stakeholders on the continent that democracy is clearly under clear and present threat and danger in the Sahel. The Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) is even more severely tasked by these political disruptions.
Although the latest attempt in Chad was foiled, one disturbing feature of the recent coups is the apparent fragility of democracy in many African countries. The jihadist onslaught in the Sahel has caused severe economic hardship by constricting agricultural land space and forcing southward population movements amid humanitarian crisis. These have been exacerbated by climate change, and the southward expansion of the Sahara Desert. The outcome of these in the midst of economically vulnerable populations and politicised military, is predictable.
The concern is that in all these countries that have witnessed military coups, the developments that toppled the democratic governments are virtually the same. Popular uprising fuelled by increasingly harsh economic conditions have been exacerbated by a lack of accountability by political leaders. This has played into the hands of ambitious military officers waiting in the wings. In a sense, these disruptions 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.
The more frightening feature of the recent coups is the recurrence of Jihadist insurgency as a factor among the excuses of coup makers. Except perhaps in Sudan where the coup was mostly the result of long standing internal political quarrels, the jihadist threat has featured as a reason for the military takeover in Mali, Guinea, Niger and Burkina Faso. Jihadist elements have mounted unrelenting military pressure on the governments of these countries and in some cases infiltrated the armed and security forces where they could not defeat them.
The ultimate lesson is for leaders on the continent: a country without entrenched civil democratic institutions and where successive political regimes do not take accountability seriously lends itself to frequent upheavals from power mongers.
