Unaccountable Rulership Spurs Coups

Hon. Ogbonna Nwuke was a member of the House of Representatives representing Etche and Omuma Federal Constituency of Rivers State. In this interview with ANAYO ONUKWUGHA, he explores possible reasons for military coups and their impact on democracy.

Are the resurging military coups in West Africa a welcome development?

Well, we cannot say that military coups are a welcome development because they reflect an interruption of democracy and they introduce rulership by force. I don’t think the general idea when it comes to governing people that military rule is seen as fashionable. But beyond that, you can see that society has moved from authoritarian structures to urbanitarian structures. Now, we are finding ourselves in the era of social responsibilities, meaning that leaders that we have are beneficiaries of a free market of ideas involving democratic institutions and knowledge. Now, let’s return to Africa, the point is if you are looking at African now, the hotbed for coups is West coast, where you have Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and others. Overnight, they all became military-ruled nations. The indication that you may have is not that the people of Africa favour coups, it is that democracy, in some areas has failed them. Then, rulership is not accountable, the political class are probably unreachable, all they want to know is corruption, all they want to know is looting, all they want to know is favoritism, ethnicism. All these become major factors to suppress the people. So, any time you see people in Africa jubilate, it is because there has been a disconnect between the people and democracy or between the people and their leaders. Honestly speaking, it is not that military coups are fashionable. You are seeing again history repeating itself. In the 60s, coups were fashionable, right? See where we are; coups are becoming fashionable, meaning that there is something the political class is not doing rightly.

Is that to say military rule has been beneficial to Africa?

The scene is very clear that even the most benevolent military governments are worse than democracies. Let me use Fela as a point of contact here; Fela sang “government magic, authority stealing” and all of these things were under the military. It shows you that whereas there could be fear of God among members of the political class, when the military is entrenched, it doesn’t care. It is worse than a democracy. Because they have a command structure which removes the legislative, but unable to remove the judiciary, so they wrap the powers of the legislature and powers of the executive to one and then work with the judiciary. This is why in some African countries, they are talking about the legislature, they don’t know the real functions of the legislature because what we are used to is decrees. Laws are rolled out by decrees, whether you like it or not; nobody is asking for your options and they tell you to obey the last command. That is the way it is and it has always been.