Preventing Military Coups In Africa: Attention, Nigeria!

 By Tonnie Iredia

Two recent military coups in neighbouring Niger and Gabon have heightened discussions in Nigeria of the possibility of military intervention in the politics of the nation. The feeling appears so palpable considering the commonality of causative factors which over the years always influenced military rule in Africa: societal restiveness, poor economy, failed elections, pervasive corruption, extravagance of politicians and the helplessness of civic society accentuated by the disappearance of the middle class.

In Nigeria, the division of society into two classes only; that is those who have everything and those who have nothing is more visibly felt than anywhere else. This has left many people to pray not just for something to change but for it to come through the efficacy of a military coup. The recent decision of the military hierarchy in Nigeria to formally dismiss such undemocratic undertones in the land is instructive.

The Comedy In The Tragedy Of Ali Bongo’s Ouster

 By Rotimi Fasan

It has never stopped raining for some of Africa’s fragile governments and reconditioned democracies. It’s been pouring. There’s a big scramble by some of the continent’s sit-tight leaders to protect their autocratic stools. Panic as well as unease is also spreading to other parts of the continent where election outcomes are either in dispute or the winners are yet to consolidate their position. From Uganda to Rwanda, Zambia to Nigeria, the story is the same. Yet the realities may not exactly be the same – at least that is the case with Nigeria where the presidential election tribunal for the February 2023 presidential election is getting set to deliver judgement.  

*Bongo 

Only days after television images showed him with smug imperturbability casting his vote in the flawed election that returned him to power after 14 years in the saddle, President Ali Bongo emerged, in a room in his presidential palace-turned-prison, asking for help and a way out of the dungeon in which he had suddenly found himself trapped by the very people he hired to protect him.