2023-08-15 05:41:43
If these bad jokers from Niamey succeed, if they dismiss President Bazoum, if they kill him, if they throw him into exile or prison, democracy in Africa would be over. It would be the death of the instituted thing, the re-actualization of coups de force, the door open to mediocracies: crooked politicians, corporals greedy for diamonds and glory, etc.
This evidence must be obvious to our best-informed elites as well as to those of the international community. It is in Niger and now that the democratic future of Africa is at stake. Its legitimate president has taken on a highly symbolic dimension since July 26. Bazoum in the hands of Tchiani, it’s Mandela at Robben Island, it’s Allende at the Moneda Palace! ECOWAS is entitled, ECOWAS has a duty to act as quickly as possible and by all means to free him from the hands of his captors and restore him to his rights.
We have supported the coups in Mali, Guinea and Burkina here, covering our noses, because to a certain extent they were justified. IBK and Kaboré no longer controlled anything. Under their aegis, Mali and Burkina went to shreds. In both countries, jihadism was spreading with the ease of an epidemic, and in the first case at least, the unpopularity of power threatened to undermine the foundations of the country.
Moreover, if Assimi Goïta enjoyed a semblance of legitimacy for some time, it was because he then benefited from the support of the social and religious forces organized within the June 5 Movement. As for Guinea, everyone knows that without the mistakes of Alpha Condé (his idea of a third term was not simply perjury, it was real madness!), Guinea would not have known the catastrophic reign soldiers.
On the other hand, nothing but then nothing justifies the enormous blunder which has just occurred in Niamey. The alternation in this country took place in an exemplary manner. After his two regulatory terms, President Mahamadou Issoufou retired as ordered by the Constitution, leaving to posterity a record that history will recognize. While it is threatened from everywhere (all its borders are infested with hotbeds of jihadists), Niger is of all the Sahelian countries, the one that has best contained the expansion of terrorists. But that’s not all: President Bazoum also inherited a healthy economy and he was careful not to squander the legacy of his predecessor. Contrary to the fallacious claims of its torturers, the security record has improved slightly and according to the World Bank, the economy has rebounded strongly in 2022.
Tchiani took power solely for personal reasons, probably to escape impeachment. He speaks to us of the “continuous degradation” of security, but whose fault is it if the terrorists win every time: civilians or the military? Can troops defeated at the front win the economic and social battle? No, Africans know what military power means: it is synonymous with corruption and repression, it has nothing else to give, not even food and lodging.
This putsch is a provocation and the arrogance shown by the squad of colonels raging in Bamako, Conakry, Ouagadougou and Niamey, a snub to the International Community. Letting these dangerous usurpers do the trick would amount to legitimizing khaki power for good. ECOWAS must take its responsibilities. It must do everything so that future generations do not condemn it for failing to assist democracy in danger.
Thierno Monénembo, Guinean writer (Black African Literary Prize and Renaudot Prize)
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#putschist #cartel #Thierno #Monénembo