About treaties banning coups

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is apparently working on another of those treaties that ban coups-de-tat.

The standard position of the African Union is to condemn coups as "unconstitutional changes of government".

The half-dozen-to-a-dozen countries that call themselves "the international community" also tend to condemn coups, at least officially anyway. Sometimes, in years past, the "international community" has instigated coups, and other times the new occupant of the office is a ready to work with them as they are with him, so after a while all is forgotten. In recent years, the United States (George W. Bush administration) supported a coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez before withdrawing the support once the coup failed, and took an acquiescent position (Barrack Obama administration) to the successful coup in Honduras against the Chavez-allied Manuel Zelaya.

I don't support coups-de-tat in Africa for the same reason that I don't support opposition political parties.  They tend to be led by people who are exactly the same as the people they are overthrowing or opposing.

However I find myself laughing at ECOWAS and the African Union when they condemn coups as "unconstitutional changes of government". The majority of the membership of these bodies are now and have always been leaders who are "unconstitutionally" in power in the first place.

I am not talking about elections. Most countries in Africa hold elections, though in a lot of countries these elections are more or less civilian coups-de-tat.  I mean, that is what a rigged election is, isn't it?

Elsewhere the rules are rigged in such a way as to guarantee only one possible victor at the polls. To be fair, almost every "democratic" country in the world has rules that lock power into the hands of particular political parties, even if the parties in question do not hold positions reflective of what the majority of the countries' people want. But whereas there is some leeway for power to switch back and forth between these parties in other countries, the level of distortion in most African countries reaches the level of contradicting the constitution's pretence of guaranteeing democratic governance. In other words, the country is a one-party dictatorship (and in some cases consequently a one-man dictatorship) masquerading as a democracy.

Look, this really isn't a topic that requires lots of rhetoric and grammar.

All things considered, the ECOWAS and AU position on coups is less about safeguarding the rights of we citizens to choose our governments, and more about self-preservation. Our continent is full of presidents who never want to lose power, and in some cases political parties that never want to lose power.  Our sub-regional and continental organizations are basically a self-help society of men and political parties keen to help each other stay in office forever, and as such they take a dim view of anyone who would dare remove one of them.

Okay, I will stop being sarcastic and be serious for a moment.

There is a saying (which I will paraphrase) that anyone who makes peaceful change impossible is by definition making violence change unavoidable.  Here is my problem.  The various governments in Africa make it impossible to democratically remove any of the governments in Africa, so while I do not support coups (for the reasons I stated above), the only alternative our leaders offer us is for them (or their parties) be in office forever, with dire consequences for our countries and our continent.

This is why Nigerians and Africans are apathetic towards coups. As much as commentators might condemn coups, citizens generally shrug their shoulders and carry on, because the government that just fell was irrelevant to them at best, harmful to them at worst.  That is not to say that they support the coups, because they expect the new government to be irrelevant to them at best, and harmful to them at worst.

So while the political leaders in ECOWAS and the AU react with outrage to coups, most Africans react with apathy .... and with amusement to the sight of hypocrites accusing other people of thwarting the constitution. Because lets be honest, inasmuch as there hasn't been a coup in Nigeria since 1999, there hasn't been much "constitutionalism" either.  And we are actually one of the better cases on the continent.

I believe that the people of Africa would stand up and fight if there was something worth fighting for or defending. I believe the reason our people don't fight is there is no sense in risking their lives or dying on behalf of politicians, political parties and political systems that either frustrate their life hopes or actively harm them on a day-to-day basis.

The only way to ensure a stable political environment in Nigeria or Africa, is to create a political environment worth fighting to preserve. And this is the thing our political leaders do not understand, or do not want to understand.

So they can write as many treaties as they want banning coups, it won't save them from coups, or in the case of Egypt and Tunisia, from a sudden explosion of long-pent-up rage at the political system.

Indeed, one gets the distinct impression that even the army officers and soldiers do not feel these governments and political systems are worth dying for.  There is a tendency among them to make peace with the new, rather than defend the old.