Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jr., has called for a complete halt to the endless cycles that bring about coup d’états in Africa.
He said coups hinder the political and socio-economic growth of a country and it has to be stopped.
Appearing as a guest on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana on 30th August 2023, Kwesi Pratt explained what mostly triggers coups and further expressed his dissatisfaction with the developments.
“What happened in the past was the popular coup regimes come to stay in power usually for a couple of years and go back to constitutionally drafting, the draft new constitutions, we hold elections bring civilian government into power and repeat the same mistakes of previous civilian governments bringing about these coup d’états,” he explained.
Additionally, Mr. Pratt said research must be conducted to unravel what turns popular coup d’états into a popular mass movement of the people.
“What is it that we can do so that we don’t only stage coup d’états, bring in transitional governments thus civilian rule that will go back to misbehavior and warrant another coup d’état, what is missing from the equation,’ he added.
He went on to question steps taken to avoid coups, arguing that military juntas achieve nothing for the populace when they cease power, and also when power is returned to the civilian government, it repeats the mistakes that led to the coup.
“In Burkina Faso, there is a young popular military leader, what is the future of Burkina Faso beyond this individual? Who is saying all the things that those who believe in African unity and African prosperity want to hear? Beyond him what happens that’s the critical question that faces us. Otherwise, it will happen that the cycle that you stage a coup d’état you are popular, there is some pressure to write a new constitution, you hand it over to a civilian government then the same things that led to the coup d’état will happen again leading another coup that cycle has been broken,” Kwesi Pratt advocated.
Kwesi Pratt’s comment is in the wake of a new coup d’état that hit Gabon and President Ali Bongo’s government toppled.
Ali Bongo is the son of Omar Bongo, who was president of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009. The Bongo family has ruled for over 5-decades. During his father’s presidency, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1991, represented Bongoville as a Deputy in the National Assembly from 1991 to 1999, and was Minister of Defense from 1999 to 2009. After his father’s death, he won the 2009 Gabonese presidential election.
He was reelected in 2016, in elections marred by numerous irregularities, arrests, human rights violations, and post-election protests and violence.
Military officers in Gabon say they have taken power and put the president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, under house arrest, as the country becomes the latest in Africa to suffer an attempted coup, only weeks after mutinous troops seized power in Niger.
The coup comes after the results of the 2023 Gabonese general election.
The military junta assured the people of Gabon to remain calm as the action was not a call for war but in their interest and to also improve the political, socio socio-economic conditions of the central African country.
By: Edem Etsa Dorvlo | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana
