Against the backdrop of endemic corruption in the continent, only good governance can checkmate coup in Africa.
Amadou Toumani Toure and his band of criminals just coming from the past...fortunately for all humanity, they arrived too late as this is the Age of Democracy with the recent Africa Spring which began in Tunisia and spread to the whole of Arab nations, but which unfortunately, like in the past has been stolen from Africa and dubbed the ‘Arab Spring!’
Picture Source: AP
Ring leader of the greedy lot Mr Amadou Haya Sanogo Photo: AFP
With last week’s coup in the West African country of Mali, Vigilance’s readers will agree with us that they are still some idiots in uniform in Africa who are living in the past and need to be taught a few lesson in democracy. Time was when one would have been worried that the current misadventure of the Malian putschists would trigger off similar eruption along the coast of West Africa, and by extension, Africa as a whole. Thank God, not so any more, as in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s when such idiocy was the vogue, but appears now to have been permanently consigned to the ash heap of history.
The times in which humanity is are blessed times for democracy and free speech in which every bond person in all realms and climes has the “inalienable right” to throw off every shackle of bondage and set themselves free, hence this era can appropriately be termed the ‘Age of Democracy’. The African Spring of December 18, 2010 (not Arab Spring) as has been erroneously labelled by the Western media and scholars as Arab Spring- such usurpation of anything positive from Africa has its age-long tradition in arts, science, technology, philosophy, etc, but today termed Western, whereupon their African origin and authenticity had been binned
The reason which the Malian coup plotters had adduced for their misadventure and foolhardy is thoroughly simplistic, puerile and lacks common sense. The erstwhile President Amadou Toure they well knew had just one month to leave office, but their unparalleled impetuosity and perhaps, infantile radicalism corroded their senses of judgement, and for not properly reading the mood of the world at this time and age gave them away as the greatest fools on earth!
Listen to the guttural voice of the ring leader of the band of idiots: "We are not here to confiscate any power but we are here to have an army and security forces available to assume the national security...adding there was "a lack of equipment, a lack of training and our comrades are dying all the time.”
Listening to the ring leader of this criminal gang speaking on TV, you would think he is an ape from a bygone Age. Perhaps, hoping to weep up sentiment he said they had no equipment to match the threatening invasion of the Gaddafi-funded Tuareg rebels from the North; and they had complained to no avail, he would make the world know, probably this needlessness was meant to win the sympathy of the freedom and democracy-loving humanity, but it did the obverse.
In as much as we would not downplay their concern because virtually all governments the world over including advanced polities with well developed and sophisticated strategic defence policies are equally guilty of leaving their armed forces to do battles against their enemies with ‘straws’! However, having given due cognisance to the worries of the mutineers, Sanogo their ring leader needs be reminded that the military the world over is traditionally a hierarchical institution, so the concern of not having equipment to confront the dissident elements from Mali North-the Tuaregs ought to have been channelled through appropriate ranks in his country’s military hierarchy to the Commander-in-Chief, in this case President Amadou Toure.
But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt that he and his gang had done that time and again to no avail, thus leading to their frustrations, we would yet not condone their malady in disregarding constituted authorities consequent upon their truncating a democratically elected government, for apart from Europe under developing Africa, the continent’s backwardness, lack of development and poor standard of living in the midst of its superabundant natural and human capital, military adventurism which first berth in Egypt on July 23, 1952 with the overthrow of King Farouk by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser and later spread to other African States, are also to blame for Africa’s current woes. Motivated by greed, African military desiring to live like their political counterparts and partook of what is generally regarded in Nigeria as “National Cake” began to destabilise democratic institutions in the continent.
Despite its very worrisome economic woes, Africa no doubt has made giant strides in democratization processes, but we would not delude ourselves into thinking that all Africans, especially the khaki boys have all embraced democracy and so would respect democratic institutions and keep to their constitutional roles, in the face of endemic corruption which greedy military adventurers will always want to use to effect regime change in their countries. Against the backdrop of stupendous corruption in the continent, only good governance can checkmate coup in Africa.
Therefore, with this hindsight in mind, we should like to put forward the establishment of a continental force/squad to be known and called: Africa Rapid Response Squad (ARRS) or Africa Rapid Response Force (ARRF) or simply Africa Frontier Force (AFF) whose sole aim will be to checkmate all such misadventurers wanting to overthrow democratically elected governments in Africa. And there could not have been a more auspicious time for the establishment of ARRS as Islamic fundamentalism stages a comeback to destabilise the continent once more. The Tuareg invaders are an integral part of that Islamic fundamentalism aiming at Islamising the continent in order to entrench Sharia in the whole of Africa –African Governments therefore, MUST watch out for the invading Islamic forces that are already using brainwashed young persons of African ancestry to destabilise some States in Africa, such as Somalia, Sudan with Darfur in mind, and now Southern Sudan, Nigeria with Boko Haram, Kenya, to name just a few.
THE ARABS ARE COMING BACK: GADDAFI – ARAB’s NEGATIVE INFLUENCE IN AFRICA IN THE 21st CENTURY
Although we are against the coup in Mali, we cannot ignore the key point of the reason adduced by Sanogo and his colleagues –the threats of the Tuaregs from the North who having been funded and recruited by monster Muamar Gaddafi to fight his political opponents are now curiously asking for their own State using the weapons with which Gaddafi had supplied them, to kill their compatriots. Although Gaddafi is now dead, African leaders still have to ask the question who is financing the Tuaregs to do a needless battle with their compatriots in Mali South hoping to entrench the Arab Republic of Tuareg? Just as in the past, Africa remains for the Arabs, the ripe mango; it’s coming back cunningly to suck. Arabs’ violent exploit in the whole of North Africa in the past in displacing the Dark-skinned Africans and Christians and thereafter, denying Africa of their ownership of the Pharaohs, ancient artefacts and technologies pioneered by Dark-skinned Africans in and around the Nile and the whole of Africa North remain till date an indisputable historical fact.
How was Northern Sudan’s Janjaweed funded? African leaders need to wake up from their slumber and ask pertinent questions. Despite the fact that some countries in North Africa today sit at AU meetings with such highly suspicious names as Arab Republic of Libya, Arab Republic of Egypt, etc, African leaders still can’t get what is afoot, simply because they are all daft! So the question is, what are Arab nations doing in African Union?
The December 18, 2010 revolution which began in Tunisia, North Africa, has again been stolen from the continent and dubbed the “Arab Spring” instead of Africa Spring! Africa, think! Think, Africa!
When Gaddafi was alive he was used to destabilize Africa, with Gaddafi once calling for the breakup of Nigeria along religious lines, but the foolish Nigerian Authorities could not get the overall import of that unwarranted meddlesomeness in the Nigerian affairs, other than recalling their Ambassador to Libya, and thereafter, business as usual with Boko Haram now being the sword of Damocles dangling over Nigeria’s head.
Where were African leaders when Gaddafi forcefully annexed the Auzon Strip from Chad? Where were African leaders when Gaddafi sponsored the destabilization of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Mali (when he was alive) currently with the Tuaregs continuing that destabilization? Where was Africa, we ask, when Gaddafi founded Sahel-Savannah States (CEN-SAD) whose sole objective was to enable him have the soul of the AU?
The highly destructive and divisive CEN-SAD which now boasts of 25 African States as members saw to the destabilization of Sudan, Chad, Somalia, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Comoro Islands, etc. Where, where, where was Africa when a large part of her was suffering destabilization from the Arab world?
We doubt if ever any African State is going to see from the prism we have been offering them in all our editorials that the ARABS ARE COMING BACK with ‘Sharia Creep’ all over the continent!
Vigilance hereby commends ECOWAS, AU including the US, EU and other friends of Africa for being firm and speaking with one voice in denouncing Sanogo and his gang. More of this display of principled leadership is expected of the continent from time to time, for united we stand and divided we fall.