West African CSOs agenda-setting meeting for democracy

 

On April 4, 2024, civil society organisations on the platform of the West Africa Civil Society Institute with funding support from the Ford Foundation met in Lagos to find a lasting solution to the threat to democracy in the West Africa sub-region. I was one of the participants at the august event. The meeting came on the heels of a similar one held in Accra in November 2023 and on March 11, 2024, with the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States. At the one-day roundtable were representatives of civil society organisations from Anglophone and francophone West Africa such as Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Niger Republic, Senegal and Burkina Faso. A scene-setter presentation on “Socio-political and Economic Context of Democracy in West Africa” was made by Ikemesit Effiong of SBM Intelligence, Nigeria.

Keen observers of West Africa’s political crisis will know that there is a worrisome trend in the sub-region as it is classified as the “coup belt” of Africa, having witnessed the majority of the eight military coups on the continent in the last four years. Africanews of August 30, 2023, reported that Africa had experienced eight coups since August 2020. On July 26, 2023, the military junta in Niger Republic announced that they had overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum. General Abdourahamane Tiani became the new strongman of the country.

Burkina Faso experienced two putsches in eight months. On January 24, 2022, President Roch Kaboré was ousted from power by the military. Lt. Col Paul-Henri Damiba was inaugurated president in February. On September 30, Damiba was in turn dismissed from his position by the military. Capt. Ibrahim Traoré is the interim President until a presidential election scheduled for July 2024.

In Sudan, on October 25, 2021, soldiers led by Gen. Abdel al-Burhane chased out the transitional civilian leaders, who were supposed to lead the country towards democracy after 30 years of dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in 2019. Since April 15, 2023, a war due to a power struggle between Burhane and his former deputy, Mohamed Daglo, has killed at least 5,000 people in the country.

In Guinea, on September 5, 2021, President Alpha Condé was overthrown by a military coup. On October 1, Col. Mamady Doumbouya became president. The military has promised to return the place to elected civilians by the end of 2024. In Mali, there were two coups in nine months. On August 18, 2020, President Ibrahim Keïta was overthrown by the military and a transitional government was formed in October. But on May 24, 2021, the military arrested the President and the Prime Minister. Col. Assimi Goïta was inaugurated in June 2021 as transitional president. On August 30, 2023, the military removed President Ali Ondimba of Gabon from office and his cousin, Gen. Brice Nguema took over.

After a successful poll that saw the re-election of President Julius Bio in June 2023, gunmen attacked a military barrack, prison and other locations in Sierra Leone on November 26, freeing about 2,200 inmates and killing more than 20 people. The authorities said afterwards that it was an attempt to overthrow the government. Former President Ernest Koroma and some of his loyalists have been charged with treason.

The coup epidemic in West Africa and the threats it poses to the consolidation of democracy are part of the reason for the roundtable organised by WACSI in Lagos last Thursday. It was a moment of sober reflection to review and share experience on how Senegal was able to pull off from the brink of anarchy and autocracy under immediate past President Macky Sall and produced one of the cleanest elections that led to the victory of 44-year-old Bassirou Faye in the March 24, 2024, presidential poll which he won 10 days after being released from prison. Recall that Sall tried to amend the constitution to give himself a third term in office and when he did not succeed, he unilaterally postponed the presidential election indefinitely but was ruled out of order by the Constitutional Council of Senegal.

Before Senegal, there was Liberia whose presidential election in November 2023 caused an upset as the football legend, George Weah, lost the presidential seat to Joseph Boakai. Weah conceded defeat to opposition leader Boakai after a tight race, ending a presidency marred by graft allegations but helping to ensure a smooth transition of power in the once volatile African nation. Boakai, 78, a former vice president who lost to Weah in the 2017 election, led with 50.9 per cent of the vote over Weah’s 49.1 per cent.

After an exhaustive debate at the WACSI Lagos Roundtable last Thursday, it was unanimously agreed that CSOs need to help protect the shrinking civic space. There’s a need to look at how technology has changed things. There are transitional agenda in Gabon, Guinea, Niger Republic and a host of other countries under military rule. How do CSOs key into those transitional agenda to influence not only credible elections but good governance thereafter? There was a suggestion that civil society activists should not just be armchair critics but should also endeavour to contest elections with the hope of influencing positive change from within the government.  It was learnt that the internet and social networks, citizenship education and close monitoring of election results assisted in ensuring that the outcome of the presidential election in Senegal was not rigged by the government in power then.

There was a whole lot of debate about the democracy we need versus the democracy we have, and that Africans should be wary of replacing military dictators with civilian dictators. There was therefore a call for the reset of the democratic system of West Africa, nay Africa. A participant called it the redemocratisation agenda. The issue of political and governance system vulnerability was flagged with a call for strengthening our governance and democratic institutions. Issues of economic justice, rule of law, and political accountability were seriously canvassed. A strategy was equally canvassed against misinformation and disinformation. There should be an irreducible minimum standard for democracy as electoral democracy is not enough. There is a need to spotlight good examples and forge an elite consensus, as coalition of the willing will not be sufficient to bring about the envisaged positive change.