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The
Coup Maker Democratized
Kofi
Akosah-Sarpong
You don’t
have to be a political scientist to acknowledge that
democracy is rising in Africa. But you get the sense
better when former military junta members reconcile
Africa’s development challenges with democracy, and
condemn military juntas that have asphyxiated Africa’s
progress. So Africa’s democracy scene becomes exciting
when you hear the likes of Nigeria’s Gen. Olusegun
Obasanjo talk democracy as Africa’s hope for progress
and dissuade Africa’s military from venturing into
coups.
A
democratized military junta leader, Obasanjo said this
in front of Ghanaian military officers, at their core
training grounds, the Ghana Military Academy in Accra.
That makes Obasanjo not only instructive but also
revealing, not peripheral but at the core, talking
face-to-face to a military institution some of which
graduates helped messed up Africa. While military
juntas in South Korea, Brazil, Chile and Taiwan helped
laid down the foundation of their countries progress, in
Africa it is the opposite.
Self-serving motives aside, Africa’s military politician
didn’t understand Africa and in their confusion helped
worsened the African situation. Let’s be very frank and
true to Africa: if not in Africa, where in the world
could Gen. Idi Amin or Gen. Samuel Doe be Heads of
State? And you don’t have to think too hard to
understand why they destroyed their respective
countries.
In Amin,
Doe and others, Africa discovered that the likes of them
couldn’t comprehend the complicated and technical nature
of the development challenges facing Africa. Here
Obasanjo isn’t boring but worthy, in the sense that he
has been involved in coups, was entangled in military
junta troubles with the brutal Gen. Sani Abacha junta
that nearly killed him , and after all these, was democratically
elected a two-term civilian president. Obasanjo is a
mixed bag of Africa’s political evolution, more so
coming from Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria. Now
the old General is highly refined, haven’t seen it all,
and has come to the agonizing conclusion that military
coup is bad for Africa.
Now and
then you need somebody like Obasanjo’s gravitas to
clarify Africa, to explain Africa’s contentiousness to
Africa. It needn’t necessarily be about political
partisanship but it could be about the military’s place
in Africa’s democratic evolution. But the more on
democracy the better since from Africa’s political
history, good leadership as the foundation for quality
governance issue for progress has been a problem.
In his
Ghana Military Academy’s deliberations, Obasanjo became
some sort of one-man Athenian kleroterion.
Despite thousands of graduates, Obasanjo was picked by
his Alma Mata to discuss the military, development, and
democracy in Africa.
Why? To
make tough reflections and deliver it unto the face of
the military school (as part of the solution to Africa’s
political disaster). At the Ghana Military Academy some
of its graduates have been involved in coups in the past
including Obasanjo himself. Obasanjo, a
democratized military officer, took democracy to the
military school and hatched some sort of “deliberative
democracy” with it. Here the senses of the discussions
are that democracy isn’t grown by civilians alone but
the military, too. It is a cooperative venture and it is
“deliberative-democracy exercise.”
Given the
political troubles Africa has gone through in the past
50 years, a reasonable amount committed by its military,
Obasanjo’s deliberative democratic exercise with the
African military is a productive moment for Africa
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong,
,
Accra, Ghana, September
5, 2010
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