POLITICAL POWER AND GOVERNANCE in Africa have their fair share of blame in Africa’s underdevelopment. Sovereignty of countries has been a shield – not so impenetrable – that wielders of political powers often use to keep themselves from public accountability and responsible leadership. And, quite sadly, the theoretical knowledge of the ideals of democracy is not applied as a working tool where it matters. Rather, riding roughshod on such a tool is more the rule rather than an exception. And, for whatever reason may be adduced in support of aberrant styles of leadership, the interest of the public should come first. And this is where democracy in Africa has woefully failed to excel.
The theoretical establishment of democratic governments in most African countries in the past three decades has largely failed to translate to what the citizens of those countries could and should feel, namely: functional infrastructure, reliable healthcare services, good and universal education, good food, robust economy and social security, among others. Signs of failures of leadership are ubiquitous, from Mauritania to Mauritius, from Cape Town to Cairo, from Abuja to Abidjan or from Eritrea to Eswatini. From the benefit of hindsight, expecting radical changes in governance and leadership in the future could well be an illusion and a pipe dream.
The crises spearheaded and perpetrated by many African leaders – past and present – are laying the foundation for the continent’s uncertain future. While many countries have been severely battered as some political leaders cornered state powers and turned the same to personal entitlements, the progress of many others has been slowed down or reversed on the whims of just a few political leaders in public offices. Democratic ideals have been called to question by the actions of state leaders who have attempted to – or have succeeded in – altering countries’ constitutions to enable them to stay longer in office.
The likes of Alassane Ouattara would most likely want to be seen as a champion of democracy after altering the constitution of Côte d’Ivoire to enable him run for a third term in office. His colleague in the neighbouring Guinea Conakry has not been so lucky. After trying out the same trick and plunging his country into crisis, Alpha Alpha Condé would be removed by men in uniform, returning the country to military rule. Similar reasons may not have been given for the removal of Boubacar Keita of Mali by Assimi Goita, the army colonel that has held sway in the country since his first coup in August 2020 and his subsequent takeover of power since May the following year.
In many countries of Africa, men and women of about thirty years of age know of no other presidents now than the ones they grew up to know. In Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Eritrea, the story is the same. Apart from a few elected leaders that later altered the constitutions of the countries to enable them to stay on in power, some fought their way into office, like Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame. Others came in through coup d’état and thereafter solidified their hold on power, transforming into civilian presidents, but contesting and winning every subsequent arrangement that has the appearance of election as a way of legitimising their continued stay in office.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea came into office in 1979 through a coup d’état, but remains in office till now, at 81, winning an election for his sixth term in office recently. Paul Biya of Cameroon has spent over 40 years in office and is not yet ready to leave. The same applies to Yoweri Museveni who has been in office since 1986 and is still winning election after election, to continue to rule the country. Denis Sassou Nguesso, 79, has been in power for 38 years since 1979, even though his rule has been interrupted between 1992 and 1997. He was re-elected in 2016 after the passing of a new constitution, then won a fourth mandate last year on March 21.
Some may argue that the continuation of one man in office for decades ensures stability in a country. That plausible argument ignores the bigger crisis inherent in the tendency towards wielding absolute power and all the attendant corruption and lack of accountability. Those who throw up the stability argument might be quick to seek justification with Rwanda’s story of Paul Kagame who has run the country for 23 years and hopes to remain in office till 2034. His election victory by 99 percent of votes for the third term in office in 1997 is typical of many African despots. Such sweeping victories sound too good to be true as stories from informal sources usually attest to brutal suppression of oppositions. Although the margin of victory in Museveni’s recent win for the sixth term in office in 2021 was said to be 59 percent, he was pronounced the winner nonetheless.
The reckless hold on power for too long in countries that ought to be governed through participatory democracy is leaving negative legacies in its trail. The fleeting stability – often held as major gains – easily crumbles after the exit of such leaders, especially when the successors are not their handpicked progenies. That could explain the exceptions in cases of Togo and Gabon where Eyademas and Bongos remain in power. Another, nearly like them, is the case of Chad where Mahamat succeeded his long-reigning father, Idriss Déby Itno, at least for now as transitional president, albeit in military uniform. Undoubtedly, Déby Itno plunged Chad into greater crises during his three decades of rule, first as a military leader. He later transformed into a civilian leader through his formation of a political party on which he ran his successive elections, winning at every turn until his sudden death in 2021.
Beyond the veneer of nationalism, their prolonged rule is more of a means to satisfy selfish craving for power rather than for the benefit of the citizens. The refusal to make provision for smooth succession by African despots does not bode well for the continent. Most of those who have been in power for upwards of 20 years have created a generational gap in leadership. They have been mostly out of touch with reality in the new generation. In modern tech-speak, they could best be described as analogue age leaders operating as leaders in a digital age.” Their response to inter-generational issues has been mostly drab and uninspiring, leading to crises that have mostly degenerated into unmanageable consequences.
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was one of the victims of the Arab Spring. Like many other African nations’ leaders of his time, he started out in office in 1987 as an army officer and later as a politician, serving as president of Tunisia for 23 years till he was toppled by the modern tech-driven popular uprising on January 14, 2011. If Tunisia knew any peace or stability since Ben Ali’s departure, it could best be described as transient. The most recent takeover of power by a constitutional law professor who ran for office as a populist candidate has dramatically reshaped politics in Tunisia, with his approach that puts the country on the path of democratic backsliding. His iron-fist approach to governance and encroachment on the legislative and judiciary arms of government has shown how determined he is to extinguish Tunisia’s flames of democracy. In 2021, President Kais Saied declared his intention to rule by decree and to ignore parts of the constitution as he prepared to change the political system.
Although President Saied’s high-handedness has prompted widespread protests within Tunisia, he was undeterred. In what reeks of civilian coup, he undermined the democratic gains of Tunisia’s 2011 revolution by sacking the prime minister, suspending the parliament and assuming absolute executive authority, under the guise of a national emergency. He embarked upon measures that violated human rights, stoked xenophobia and sanctioned crackdown against black migrants. Saied’s October 2019 election victory – built around the sentiment of January 14, 2011 Tunisian Revolution – has turned out to be a stepping stone for an unexpected power grab as shown in his subsequent actions and pronouncements. His actions have confirmed the observations of late Professor Peter F. Drucker, the world acclaimed management thinker, who once wrote cynically about revolutions.
Although the legendary Thomas Jefferson believed that revolution was necessary for every generation to cure society of tyrannical abuses, Peter Drucker disagreed. According to Drucker, the end results are usually undesirable. “Yet ‘revolutions,’ as we have learned since Jefferson’s days, are not the remedy. They cannot be predicted, directed or controlled. They bring to power the wrong people. Worst of all, their results – predictably – are the exact opposite of their promises. Only a few years after Jefferson’s death in 1826, the great anatomist of government and politics, Alexis de Tocqueville, pointed out that revolutions do not demolish the prisons of the old regime, they enlarge them. Indeed, we now know that ‘revolution’ is a delusion of the nineteenth century, but today perhaps the most discredited of its myths. We now know that ‘revolution’ is not achievement and the new dawn. It results from senile decay, from the bankruptcy of ideas, from failure of self-renewal.”
Is it any surprise, therefore, that the neighbouring Algeria went into a state of anomie after booting out Abdelaziz Bouteflika from office? Bouteflika was forced to resign on April 2, 2019, after months of mass protests in the same month the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was forced out of office. Bouteflika and al-Bashir caved in to popular protests that ended their corrupt and repressive rules of 20 and 30 years from 1999 and 1989 respectively. Their sudden exit marked another watershed in their respective countries’ political history in which a military coup rode on the back of popular protests to seize power, with varying magnitude and severity of outcomes. Ahmed Gaid Salah, a military general became Algeria’s de facto leader after the resignation of the ailing 82-year old Bouteflika, effectively gaining control of the country. Gaid Salah, however, died in the middle of the protests and former Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected as Algeria‘s new president after a contentious election in which the 74-year-old came first in the five-men presidential race, purportedly recording 58.15 percent of votes in an election with just over 41 percent voters’ turnout.
In Sudan, it has been from one crisis to another since the exit of al-Bashir in 2019. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military commander who has been the de facto leader of Sudan after seizing power, had defied months of widespread protests to remain at the helm. The inclusion of a non-military figure in government seemed to have temporarily calmed people’s nerves as Abdalla Hamdok was appointed as prime minister in August 2019 in what was called a three-year transition to civilian rule. This was later terminated with the removal and arrest of Hamdok in October 2021, a decision that was reversed a month later, in November as he was reinstated after a mass protest. In January 2022, Hamdok decided to resign because of his inability to continue to make the desired progress under General al-Burhan.
Sudan suffered a serious setback on April 15, following a disagreement between General al-Burhan and the deputy head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Hamdan, who is also the leader and commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is a former camel trader – widely known as Hemeti – who led a militia accused of genocidal violence in Darfur. The outbreak of hostilities in April has snowballed into a full scale urban war which has devastated cities like capital Khartoum, Omdurman and the Darfur region in West Sudan. In the wake of this war, thousands of Sudanese have been killed while an indeterminate number of people have fled to neighbouring countries, particularly Chad – further complicating the humanitarian crisis in Chad since the time of Deby Itno.
The footprints of leaders – past and present – in Africa have therefore become too visible to ignore based on how they have governed and the tremendous negative impacts on the people. Africa deserves a better deal from its political leaders. The situation as it has been and as it is now must change for people’s benefits. The political somersaults that have decimated people’s fortunes and endangered people’s lives need to end. Africa needs to chart new, pragmatic and enduring paths for the people. The solution lies within the continent. Leaders must deeply introspect and put people’s interest above personal interest. This is one of the major requirements for Africa’s progress.
