COUP IN NIGER: A BAD OMEN FOR DEMOCRACY

PHOTO: FORMER NIGER PRESIDENT MAMADOU TANDJA. PHOTO: REUTERS.

When the army struck in far away Thailand in 2006, I had a sense of foreboding that the phenomenon would soon spread to African countries that were just heaving a sigh of relief from military intervention. Shortly after the Thai coup, there were attempted coups in Madagascar and Cote d’Ivoire. In September 2009, the army struck in Guinea-Conakry and holds sway there till today. The latest country to suffer this ugly development is Niger, a West African country of over 14 million people with 61% percent of the population living on less than one U.S. dollar per day.

Though very rich in Uranium, Niger is the second poorest country in the world. It is replete with the history of coups, assassinations and on-off rebellion by the Tuareg nomadic tribe. The latest coup was triggered by the unilateral amendment of the constitution by the ousted President, Mr. Mohammed Tandja, who was first voted into power in 1999 after the assassination of military ruler, Ibrahim Barre Mainassara, who himself had earlier in 1996 toppled Ousmane Mahamane in another coup. Tandja was returned to power in 2004 through a controversial election.

In August 2009, he provoked a political crisis by dissolving the parliament and unilaterally amending the constitution to enable him to remain in power indefinitely. Right from that moment, his legitimacy became questionable. Little wonder then that thousands of jubilant Nigeriens trooped to the streets in support of the coup. The coup plotters, through their leader, Col. Salou Djibo, announced that they were not interested in power but the restoration of democracy. This has always been the excuse of the military but they have not resolved conflicts and most of them ended up creating more conflict and becoming more corrupt than the ousted regime they claimed to correct. 

The coup plotters stormed the venue of a cabinet meeting, rounded up the President and his cabinet and took them into an unknown destination. Reports have it that ten people including 4 soldiers died in the coup. With the rumour of a coup in Nigeria when her President was away for more than 80 days without official leave, the continent of Africa is suddenly back to the era of military coups and attempted coups as was the case in the 1960s up till the mid 1980s. Scholars of military intervention in politics often give divergent reasons for it, which are military, political and socio-economic factors.

The reason given by the putschists in Niger - to fight tyranny and restore democracy- underscores the position of Professor Samuel Huntington in his book- Political Order in Changing Societies (1968) ‘….that the most important causes of military intervention in politics are not military but political because military intervention in developing countries is only one specific manifestation of general politicization of social forces and institutions. Societies where most social forces and institutions are politicized have political clergy, political universities, political bureaucracies, political labor unions, and political corporations and of course political armed forces.

All these specialized groups tend to become involved in political issues, which affect their particular interests or groups, and also in issues, which affect society as a whole. As a result, the whole society is out of joint, and no political institution or group of political leaders is recognized or accepted as the legitimate intermediary to moderate conflicts between groups. Furthermore, in such societies, no agreement exists among the groups as to the legitimate and authoritative methods of resolving conflicts.’ 

However, what scholars like Huntington failed to emphasize in their theories is the importance of free and fair elections and the strict adherence to the rule of law and constitutionality. There is a symbiotic relationship between a free and fair election and military intervention. Any government that gets to power through a fraudulent election is most likely to be faced with the crisis of legitimacy. Apart from this, it is such unpopular governments that have the propensity to want to elongate their stay in power indefinitely by manipulating elections after all opposition might have been crushed. Examples are abound in Africa: Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Eyadema’s Togo, Musseveni’s Uganda, Kerekou’s Benin Republic, Sese Seko’s Zaire (Now DRC), Obasanjo’s Nigeria and Ghaddafi’s Libya. In the above mentioned countries, free and fair elections are anathema. 

In Cote d’Ivoire, protesters recently blocked major streets and made bonfires to protest massive rigging of a just concluded election. This means the possibility of a coup in Cote d’Ivoire is high. Ironically, in the Latin American country of Haiti, which is yet to come out of the ruins from a devastating earthquake, the people of the poor country are rooting for the return of their first freely elected President in 219 years, Jean Betrand Aristide (1991; 1994-1996, 2001-2004) who was ousted twice by the military (1991 and 2004) and sent on exile since 2004. Haitians are holding rallies in support of his return to come and fix Haiti after the earthquake as they have lost confidence in the ability of the present regime to hold the country together. The government itself had openly admitted failure by saying the governance may collapse as well as law and order. That Haitians are calling for the return of a man they voted for almost 20 years ago, and six years after his ouster, underscores the potency of legitimacy. 

Members of the international community like the EU, AU and ECOWAS have condemned the coup in Niger but that is not enough.  The world bodies should expedite action concerning sanctions against sight tight leaders like Tandja who change constitutions of their countries at will. This is because in the final analysis, there is no difference between Tandja who flouted the constitution to remain in power against the wishes of the electorate and the military junta who seized power by suspending the constitution. If the AU had suspended Niger, as it has done now, when Tandja first defiled the constitution, may be the present coup would have been avoided. Other countries like Nigeria must learn from developments in Niger and respect the provisions of the constitution by allowing the institutions of government carry out their constitutionally allotted functions devoid of political machinations.