There’s no need for coups if governments serve the people

There have been a number of coups d’etat, or military dethroning, of what are called “democratically elected” governments, in Africa in recent times – particularly in West Africa, or the French-speaking African countries.

As these dethronings happen, we are told only of the “illegitimacy” of such acts. The corruption of the “democratically elected” leaders and their governments is seldom spoken of.

We are never told of how impoverished those countries are, despite their abundance of natural mineral resources.

In all the dethroned “democratically elected” governments, we don’t do much in the area of national natural resources and how those are managed and controlled.

READ: Niger reopens land and air borders after coup

We hardly ever ask about the influence of foreign and Western governments on the affected “democratically elected” governments and the benefits, if any, to their indigenous people.

We even fear to ask whether those “democratically elected” leaders account to their countries and their peoples, or do they account to other countries? Something we seldom inquire about this “democracy” we are lectured to about, nor is it defined by us, the beneficiaries.

We simply go with the one narrative we are fed every time the militaries take over power from the “democratically elected” African governments.

The long-standing historical and root causes of the eventual coups are seldom narrated to the world.

No country can truly claim freedom when its fiscus, military, foreign policy and mineral resources are controlled by another.

READ: Africa’s Sahel reeling from successive coups

This, sadly, has been the farce freedom West African countries have been subjected to, by the French government, since the 1960s, and many thought it was all normal.

We should all remember that colonialism and imperialism does stop when you have the “freedom to vote for a government of your choice”.

It is usually the very choice you are told you have that isn’t actually freedom. It is imperialism and colonialism reinvented. So is the case in Africa and specifically, in West Africa.

Don’t ask me if South Africa is any better, because it isn’t.

Let me declare at the onset that I don’t subscribe to coups, but it is very important to understand what triggers them.

In my view, if a “democratically elected” government serves its people and protects, develops and builds their economy and resources, natural and otherwise, and it is free of corruption, there would be very little justification for a coup.

In fact, it would be difficult for the armed forces to convince the nation of such an act.

The problem we have is that the African unity organisations such as the African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States are doing the opposite of what we expect of them.

Instead of dealing with member countries’ mismanagement of their’ economies, they appear to be on self-serving missions.

Why the priority of these organisations is not anti-corruption, good governance and rule of law, simply beats all logic.

It makes a mockery of African organisations to only speak out against the “undemocratic dethroning” of a “democratically elected” government (only after the fact in any case), without addressing the root cause of the dethroning in the first place.

The role and responsibility of any legitimately and democratically elected government is to serve its people and not to work against them, and to promote and protect their collective interests – nothing less, nothing more.