THE RETURN OF THE COUP

Hama Tuma

Those who had been claiming that Africans enjoy sequels and the comfort of the misery they are used to have now been vindicated. The return of the coup d’etat highlights and confirms this for all to see. Expectedly, there would be those cynics who would ask “why not the coup?” indeed when civilian power holders are corrupt and their sanity really in question.

Take the case of Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, another of the African leaders who want to pass power to their sons. For long, old man Wade acted almost as if the Cabinda mess was not in his house and paraded as an international peace maker (“let me help in Kashmir please” but there were no takers, alas).The delusion or confusion went on to mess up the situation in Senegal (so much so that some claim the country will soon have its own Islamist hardliners problem) and has led to the ridiculous project of spending more than US$ 30 million to erect an African Renaissance monument. Unmitigated waste and the monument has already been called ugly by none other than the world famous Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow. Isn’t Wade really asking, nay begging, for a coup? Travel to the east of our continent and the Ethiopian dictator, who has sold 3 million hectares of fertile land to the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, etc has also spent millions on a monument (one of many) for the victims of the Red Terror of the previous regime while almost all Ethiopians know that the present dictator is also hunting down the same people (the EPRP) who were victims of the Terror. The Swaziland King is also begging for a coup as are Deby of Chad, Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Beshir of the Sudan and the sick and incapacitated Nigerian president. No wonder the coup has come back with a vengeance removing fossil in Guinea, Mauritania, Guniea Bissau and Mali and threatening to do the same elsewhere too.

Actually, many of the present African leaders going through the funny motion of refusing to accept within the AU any coup maker are themselves notorious coup makers. Campaore, Sassou, Nguema, Beshir, Gaddafi and more made their own coup in their own time. Others usurped power, few are freely elected and almost all are corrupt dictators. The AU atmosphere reeks of coups and the military, the Armani suits notwithstanding. The African situation continues to make the coup an enticing alternative. If ignorant military officers like Idi Amin and Bokassa and Samuel Doe can take over power who can blame other sergeants if they say why not me or us indeed? It is our turn to eat sort of claim as they say in Kenya. The lowest level had been reached; there is nowhere to go but high up even with a slightly educated sergeant. Who can also forget that the coup was a gift given to Africa by the former colonial powers and new would be masters like America? Independence in the sixties led to unfurling a flag and going through the motions od being free while colonial or neo colonial puppets came to power to rob the countries blind. The deception was great, the disappointment unbearable. An yet there were sparks, harbingers of hope or at least those promising change and national pride and self governance but these were extinguished fast and furious by the West. Patrice Lumumba was murdered and Mobutu helped to stage his coup eventually and to assume absolute power. Nkrumah was ousted by a coup. Sekou Toure survived by the skin of his teeth by turning into a despot and wiping out ruthlessly any aspiring or potential coup maker. We Africans are nothing but good students of Bwana pale face and thus the coup was born, assisted by the West or freelanced by our own.

And no coup was dull, we must admit. They had flamboyant names with promises of all or nothing–Redemption, Salvation, Correctional, Revolutionary, Resurgence and Nationalist and what have you. They were of course anything but. We liked the fact that they ended many falsehoods called Constitution, parliament, democracy and even the One Nation claim. Tribalism or “ethnicism”, as it is said today, came out of the hole, became halal/kosher, the politics to uphold. The coups came to put an end to the one party system of the civilians ands set up the one man military rule, with or without a party. And as time went by, the coup became refined, it even happened accidentally once, it came again and again in Dahomey (now Benin), baptized itself as a movement and not a coup and soon after it happened started to go through the motions of an election (thoroughly rigged) and the coup maker dumps his uniform for Armani suits and his military title for the less intimidating His Excellency. Yet again, some naive souls who took their own dreams for the reality, that is to say like Sankara in Burkina Faso, were physically removed by a sober and correctional coup that brought the situation back to its rails, no more talk of being free and self reliant. Still, the coup may try hard to be a non coup but we can still see that its main features linger on. In Guinea Bissau we now have the latest version: the confused coup. Coups and violence against the people and any notion of the rule of law have been synonymous and the tradition is being kept as we saw in Guinea (Conakry). And only the naive amongst us still imagine that Britain, France and Washington are in no way involved in the coups and counter coups and conflicts bedevilling our hapless continent.

Emperor Tewodros of Ethiopia, who killed himself rather than surrender to a British invading force, told the British to send their invading troops outright and not to waste time by sending missionaries and spies. No meandering and procrastination. We tend to welcome the return of the coup because it is ending the fiction of democracy and good governance, of free elections and popular participation. The real thing in Africa, all these talks of elections notwithstanding, is the lack of democratic governance and the predominance of neo-colonial powers. We hail the return of the coup because it highlights the reality we live in, the massacre in the Conakry stadium, the murder of political dissidents, the campaign against the free press, the arrogant and murderous swagger of almost illiterate officers and generals, the blind violence against defenceless people and the real face of the African State. The truth shall set us free, no? We want and we shall get more coups. Amen.