Coups: African misrule under a ‘macabre lazy’ democracy has reached its limits – Lloyd Amoah.

Dr. Lloyd Amoah, a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana’s Department of Political Science, has charged African countries with misruling while exercising democracy.

He claimed that the extent of the continent’s misrule had been achieved.

Dr. Amoah, who is also the founding director of the Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Ghana, commented on the coup situation in Gabon by writing on Facebook that “Gabon has caught the coup contagion. The boundaries of African misgovernance under a ghastly lax democracy have been reached.

Colonel Festus Aboagye (Rtd), a security expert, also examined the reasons for Africa’s frequent coups.

He charged African leaders with tampering with democracy, altering constitutions, solidifying their hold on power, stifling the opposition, and preventing citizens from taking part in popular politics.

According to him, these measures are fueling coups in their nations.

On Wednesday, August 30, about the coup in Gabon, he said on the GhanaTonight Show on TV3, “My line of argument has always been that there are triggers for every event in life, even coups. Therefore, the chance of coups increases in any country where those triggers, those structural variables, and those nearby conditions exist.

It is not a matter of if but when, nor whether it is possible. Therefore, Gabon and some other African nations that are experimenting with democracy, altering their constitutions, solidifying their hold on power, persecuting the opposition, and preventing public engagement in politics have all the warning flags.

Army officers have announced their assumption of power on Gabonese national television.

They claimed to be nullifying the election results from the previous day, in which President Ali Bongo was pronounced the victor.

According to the electoral commission, Mr. Bongo received slightly less than two-thirds of the vote in an election that the opposition claimed was rigged.

His removal from office would put an end to his family’s 53-year rule of Gabon.

Nearly 90% of Gabon is covered in forests, making it one of Africa’s biggest oil producers.

Early on Wednesday morning, twelve soldiers appeared on television and declared they were dissolving “all the institutions of the republic” and annulling the election results.

The country’s borders had been shut “until further notice,” they added.

In the last three years, there have been eight coups in former French colonies in Africa, if this one is successful.

The majority of the others, on the other hand, have occurred further north in the Sahel, where an Islamist insurgency has sparked an increase in complaints about the democratically elected governments’ poor protection of the civilian populace.

The troops claimed to represent the nation’s security and armed forces and to be from the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions.

On the television station Gabon 24, one of the troops declared: “We have decided to defend peace by toppling the current regime.”

He continued, attributing this to “irresponsible, unpredictable governance resulting in a continuing deterioration in social cohesion that risks leading the country into chaos”.

After the broadcast, a loud shooting could be heard in Libreville, the nation’s capital.

Source:3News.com