“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last” — Winston Churchill.

West African sub-region has of recent been buffeted by the crisis of politics signposted by the many military interventions that have unseated the otherwise existing democratic structures and institutions. Economic imbalance between the haves and the haves-not leading to alienations of majority of the youthful population and heightened state of insecurity are the twin evils that have led to the increasing instability in West Africa.

West African nations are joined together in a single economic and political bloc called Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The aims of the Economic Community for West African States are to promote cooperation and integration, leading to the establishment of an economic union in West Africa in order to raise the living standards of its peoples, and to maintain and enhance economic stability, foster relations among Member States and contribute to the progress of these people and their nations.

However, ECOWAS since it was founded in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1975 is fraught with credibility and legitimacy problems. The failure of this bloc to meet up with the basic obligations imposed on them by the Treaty establishing the body means a loss of faith by the people on the political leadership and structure.

Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Guinea Bissau are nations that have witnessed the overthrow or near overthrow of democratic governments and the imposition of military regimes just as these nations have rejected the sanctions imposed on them by the regional economic bloc, ECOWAS.

There are inherent contradictions that have arisen following these military interventions that have resulted in the removal of the purported democratic structures and institutions.

Another of these twin issues is connected to the first just like how interconnected that Siamese twins are. The issue is related to the reactions of the citizens of these nations vis-à-vis the reactions of the regional economic bloc known as ECOWAS.

On the question of legitimacy of military coups, there is no doubt that forceful removal of governments said to have been set up through the democratic mandates of the citizens is virtually non-existent. Meaning it is illegitimate to use the force of arm to unseat a civilian administration, no matter how imperfectly constituted.

There is therefore a part of the larger issue connected to the first issue we are attempting to confront. The larger issue is related to the possibility that most of the civilian governments that have been set aside by the barrels of the guns were themselves not legitimately achieved because of the weakness of the very democratic institutions such as the electoral umpires that ought to have conducted free, fair and transparent elections but could not. Even in Countries where military coups haven't happened, elections were not free, fair and transparent but substantially manipulated.

To conclude on the first issue, it is therefore imperative to say that although the processes leading to the emergence of the hitherto democratic governments that have been unseated are not legitimate, but the fact is that it is illogical to adopt illegitimate means as a vehicle to remedy a pre-existing illegitimacy.

This means that adopting military coups as ways of remedying the imperfections in the elections that brought in those governments in West Africa that are now defunct due to military coups is as bad as applying bigger evil to correct a lesser evil.

If this is the case with military coups, why then are the citizens not on the streets to register their disapproval of the forceful removal of these governments? This is exactly because majority of the citizens of these nations do harbour a deep sense of alienations by the former so-called civilian administrations to an extent that they no longer feel obliged to defend the type of democracy that was established through illegitimate process.

Then, the next logical question is to analyse the credibility and legitimacy of ECOWAS.

This is because ECOWAS has taken upon itself, the task of over ruling these military coups.

But this sub-regional body is essentially dominated by politicians from the member nations who also may not have won their own elections in free and fair process.

The West African Economic bloc has also carved a niche for itself as a toothless bulldog, given that it has been unable to successfully used the sets of economic embargoes it has always unleashed on the Countries that are now under military governments to achieve a return to democracy.

Most of the focal persons who speak for ECOWAS do also have one credibility issue or the other trailing the elections that brought them to offices as heads of state of their nations. So it is a case of physician, heal thyself.

We will return to look at ECOWAS in a separate piece, but let us look at the development of coups in West Africa.

British Broadcasting Corporation has a classical and extensive report on this phenomenon and says that Military coups were a regular occurrence in Africa in the decades that followed independence and there is concern they are starting to become more frequent.

This year has already seen two – a takeover by the army in Burkina Faso and the other a failed coup attempt in Guinea Bissau.

2021 witnessed a higher number of coups in Africa compared with previous years. BBC then posed the question thus; When is a coup a coup?

One definition used is that of an illegal and overt attempt by the military – or other civilian officials – to unseat sitting leaders.

A study by two US researchers, Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne, has identified over 200 such attempts in Africa since the 1950s.

About half of these have been successful – defined as lasting more than seven days.

Burkina Faso, in West Africa, has had the most successful coups, with eight takeovers and only one failed coup.

Sometimes, those taking part in such an intervention deny it’s a coup.

In 2017 in Zimbabwe, a military takeover brought Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule to and end. One of the leaders, Maj Gen Sibusiso Moyo, appeared on television at the time, flatly denying a military takeover.

In April last year, after the death of the Chadian leader, Idriss Dérby, the army installed his son as interim president leading a transitional military council. His opponents called it a “dynastic coup.”

“Coup leaders almost invariably deny their action was a coup in an effort to appear legitimate,” says Jonathan Powell.

BBC asked thus: How often are there coups in Africa? And says:

“The overall number of coup attempts in Africa remained remarkably consistent at an average of around four a year in the four decades between 1960 and 2000.

Jonathan Powell says this is not surprising given the instability African countries experienced in the years after independence.

“African countries have had conditions common for coups, like poverty and poor economic performance. When a country has one coup, that’s often a harbinger of more coups.”

Coups dropped to around two a year in the two decades up to 2019.

We are only three years into the current decade and while in 2020 only one coup was reported in Mali, there was a noticeably higher than average number in 2021 with six coups or attempted coups recorded.

There were successful coups in Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan and failed military takeovers in Niger and Sudan.

In September 2021, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, voiced concern that “military coups are back,” and blamed a lack of unity amongst the international community in response to military interventions.

“Geo-political divisions are undermining international co-operation and… a sense of impunity is taking hold,” he said.

One of the few Icons of democracy who lost a reelection and accepted to relinquish power has spoken on this ugly development. But his conclusion is fallacious because contrary to his conclusion that coups threaten democracy in West Africa, the real threats to democracy are politicians who lack the temperament to play the game by the rules but believe in manipulating the institutions to self perpetuate.

The former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, says recent coups in some African countries posed threats to democracy, security and sustainable development of West Africa.

Mr Jonathan, who spoke at a two-day ECOWAS Council of the Wise (CoW) strategic retreat and planning workshop in Lagos, recalled that three military coups were witnessed in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and coup attempts in Niger and Guinea Bissau.

“This development poses a serious threat to democracy in ECOWAS, especially at a time that onslaught of militants and terrorists across the Sahel and frontline countries have worsened the security situation in the sub-region,” he said.

Mr Jonathan, the chairperson of Cow, noted that the commission was determined to restore peace in the troubled countries.

“The ECOWAS Commission and the Authority of Heads of State and Governments have been working hard to restore peace and constitutionality in troubled member nations and return ECOWAS to the days of glory,” he said.

The former president noted that CoW’s task was challenging, which required playing active roles in mediation and consultations to prevent and resolve conflicts.

He added that the council should be able to catalyse an engagement process that would deepen the roots of democracy in the sub-regions.

“We will undertake a comprehensive briefing on the ECOWAS early mechanisms and develop modalities for the operationalisation of the Council and members to jointly develop and validate a one-year plan of action,” the former president added.

Francis Behanzin, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, noted that the essence of the meeting was to strategise preventive action to avoid further crisis in African nations.

A political science writer who authorized a book titled: “the Good State, on the principles of democracy,” even argued that the foundation upon which western democracies stand are inherently flawed and vulnerable to corrosion from within. He also states that by the simplest of measures, neither Britain, which most African Countries borrowed democracy from, nor the USA can claim to be truly democratic.

According to the author, “the basic tenet of democracy is that government is by the people for the people, but the effect of politics and political partisanship has been to make both countries in the words of the conservative peer lord Hail sham, ‘elective dictatorship’ rather than democracies.”

The second point to be addressed is this fundamental question: What is government for? More to the point: In a democracy, what is government for?

James Madison, George Mason, and others assembled in Williamsburg in the spring of 1776 to begin drafting a constitution. The preamble to it said: “Government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community.

“Of all the various models and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”

The arguments he said of the Founders about the right to resist bad government were, of course, directed at the British Crown; it was the rhetoric of the revolution. Invocations of 'the people and its rights did not include slaves or women; the people were adult white men only. What has, with regret, to be acknowledged as the hypocrisy of the constitution persisted until the 1960s.

But the wording of the draft preamble is suggestive. It offers at least part of an answer to the question: Why do the people constitute a government? Evidently a generalized version of the preamble indicates that the purpose of government is to serve the people’s interests. What are the people’s interests, in the required general sense? One thing immediately clear is that a collective is stronger than the strongest individual in it - or should be. To protect the weak against the depredations of the strong, to promote fairness and security, to succour the ones who fall by the wayside, to work to make life better and to make it good, are tasks that a collective can take on for the benefit of its members. Given the inclusivity presupposed to the notion of 'the people, it would seem that the purpose of democratic government is in good part captured by these thoughts, (A. C. GRAYLING “THE GOOD STATE: ON THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY”).

•Emmanuel Onwubiko is Head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and was Federal Commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission Of Nigeria

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