Global affairs analyst, Paul Ejime, says Africa is experiencing a dangerous “coup contagion” driven by the failure of political rulers who manipulate constitutions, stifle opposition and govern with impunity.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE News on Monday, he said the wave of unconstitutional changes of government across West Africa is the direct outcome of leaders who “are rulers, political rulers — they are not leaders.”
Ejime said repeated abuses by elected governments have empowered soldiers to believe they can seize power themselves. “Because the coup has failed to act when it needed to, the politicians are doing whatever they please and without consequence — impunity and no consequence,”he said.
“And when the civilians try to protest, they use the military to suppress them. Now the military has found a way to say, ‘Well, you are using us to do this or that. We can also do it on our own.’”
He described the recent failed coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau as “a comic of a coup,” recalling his presence in the country during events. “One was saying that Embaló should have come to Nigeria to meet Nollywood on how to organise coups. It was so comical,” he said.
“Somebody in a market square will steal something and try to hide it behind his back in the full glare of traders and customers.”
Ejime accused the Guinea-Bissau President, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, of dismantling democratic institutions. “He has sacked parliament twice. As we speak, Guinea-Bissau has no parliament,”he said.
“He has appointed all the judges. He changed the timetable for the election, giving himself about seven or eight months, saying his tenure did not end in February but in November.”
He said Embaló interfered with the 23 November election results because “he saw that he wasn’t going to win. Now he manufactured the risk.” Ejime added that those now in interim control are the president’s loyalists. “The Prime Minister was his campaign director. How can this man have that gut to fool not just his country but the whole world?”
He also criticised the President’s attempts to block scrutiny. “When ECOWAS went on a mission in March, he told them not to meet the opposition. When they insisted, he threatened them — he said if he met them in Bissau, they would leave not by flight but by road,”Ejime recounted. “This is the kind of impunity that these people have.”
Expanding on democratic decline across the region, Ejime said political elites undermine democratic norms while citizens enable such behaviour. “They tinker with the constitution, change it, and with the connivance of the people,”he said.
“The citizens are also guilty. It is time for them to take back power.”
He rejected the argument that democracy is failing. “Some people say democracy has failed. No — my theory is that it is the people that have failed democracy, not the practitioners,” he said. “You have a constitution, but they decide to change it. We have had constitutional coups, electoral coups, violations of human rights, and they do not tolerate opposition.”
Citing Benin Republic under President Patrice Talon, Ejime said, “A woman who challenged Talon in an election was jailed for 20 years in 2021 and labelled a terrorist. That is what you have.”
On Nigeria’s decision to deploy troops to Benin Republic following a request from Cotonou, Ejime said the threat was too close to home to ignore. “The danger was coming too close to home, and if Nigeria didn’t do anything, it would become the next target,” he said.
He noted that external interests were already fuelling the crisis. “The man who organised the coup appeared on another channel to say he was alive, while the French media said he was dead. You can see it has brought in so many interests,”Ejime said.
He defended Nigeria’s rapid response, drawing parallels with past regional interventions. “When fire is in your neighbour’s house, you don’t start pleading. I think that is what they have done,” he said.
“This is the kind of thing Nigeria ought to have been doing. A government elected and uprooted through a constitutional anomaly — you can act first and look for justification later, provided you do not overdo it.”
Ejime concluded that ECOWAS and African leaders must simply respect the rules. “They should play by the rules. There are rules to this game — starting with the constitution and the electoral laws. But they are not obeying them,”he said.
Boluwatife Enome
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