By Iddi Yire
Accra, Oct. 17, GNA – The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has advocated good democratic governance and term limits to prevent unconstitutional overthrow of Governments in Africa.
Dr Kojo Pumpuni Asante, the Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement, CDD-Ghana, said although the best antidote to coup d’etats were democratic governance, a disciplined security force, that respected fundamental human rights, African leaders must also demonstrate a rejection of constitutional coups by legislating against term elongation.
“There must be a deterrent to unconstitutional overthrow of Government, and it is difficult to take military force off the table. Admittedly it is much more difficult to do in a multi-polar world.
“A recent example is Niger,” Dr Asante stated in his keynote address at the Second Stakeholders’ Convening on Governance, Democracy and Human Rights in Africa – West Africa in Accra.
The conference is being organised by the Data for Governance Alliance consortium (D4GA) in collaboration with CDD-Ghana and the Afrobarometer, with funding support from the European union (EU).
D4G’s core mission is to uplift African citizens by advancing governance, democracy, and human rights.
Speaking on the topic: “Democracy in Africa at Risk of Unconstitutional Changes of Governments,” Dr Asante expressed concern over the credibility and transparency of the outcome of recently held elections in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe.
Dr Asante said all across Africa, they were seeing a high level of intolerance and closing of civic spaces and curtailing of civilian voices whether online or offline.
He said despite the bad experience of Guinea, African leaders continued to flirt with the idea of term enlongation, citing what occurred in Gabon leading to another coup.
He said some military leaders took advantage of unpopular governments, making unreasonable promises could not honour, leading to a rising restlessness among the people and army, who were demanding answers to challenges of economic crisis, insecurity, joblessness, choiceless democracies and hopelessness through protests online and offline.
Dr Asante said aside from these issues were the expanding geo-political contestation between and amongst old and new powers in scramble for Africa.
He said an Afrobarometer Survey report indicated that a significant majority of African citizens expressed support for democracy and accountable governance norms, institutions, and processes; two-thirds (66 per cent) prefer democracy over any other system of government, and even more reject non-democratic alternatives.
The report showed that majority of Africans were in favour of constitutional term limits for the elected Governments, he said.
Dr Asante said the West African region, which in the 2000s led the continent in progressive instruments, initiatives and mechanisms for securing democratic governance like the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and all the supplementary protocols on democracy, was now an arena of coup d’etats.
He said the events of the last two years had challenged the efficacy of regional and continental bodies, particularly ECOWAS and AU.
He underscored that ECOWAS had suffered a significant credibility crisis as it had tried to deploy its traditional response to unconstitutional changes in government like suspension and economic sanctions.
Dr Asante said the case against ECOWAS was that its members include heads of states who themselves had extended their mandates illegally (or engaged in constitutional coups) or were using repression to marginalise opposition in their country and close civic spaces, so they lack any moral right to call the military when they take over government.
He added that regional bodies were inconsistent with application of international laws like the situation in Chad and Egypt, where there had been clear violations of AU’s own charter on democracy.
He said recently when ECOWAS threatened to go and restore democratic order in Niger by military force, there was an uproar, and the Niger Junta was claiming that they should be given the same treatment as Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea.
He said Africans need ECOWAS and AU if they were to collectively tackle the transnational problems of insecurity, extremism, economic crisis, bad governance and democracy decline; saying “In essence, we should not throw the baby with the bathwater.”
He said if ECOWAS was to move from an ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of People, then it would have to reform by beginning to engage with its people using all its organs like the ECOWAS Parliament.
Mr Paul Nana Kwabena Aborampah Mensah, the D4GA Programme Manager, said the convening was crucial and formed part of the broad strategies to achieve the objectives of the project, which seeks to strengthen the relationship between Pan-African civil society organisations (CSOs) and the African Governance Architecture (AGA) Platform members by creating a platform for interface engagements among them.
He said it was also to build capacity of pan-African CSOs to access and efficiently use data for advocacy on governance, democracy and human rights issues in Africa to support the 2063 Agenda to achieve the “Africa We Want.”
GNA