The Director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Prof. Kwesi Aning, says the West African sub-region may witness a couple of coup de’tats between now and 2023.
According to him, if ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) does not urgently resolve the insecurity threats in the sub-region, two or more military takeovers will be recorded in some countries.
Contributing to Accra-based Joy FM’s flagship programme, Newsfile on Saturday, January 29, 2022, Prof. Aning said contributory factors of those uprisings could be attributed to the trajectory of extreme violence, excessive corruption among politicians, unemployment, poor educational system among others.
“This would not be the end of it. Between now and June 2023, we would see similar things happen. Probably two more. If we don’t stem the tides between now and 2023 then we get two more, the pack of cards will begin to fall,” he said.
Providing some solutions to curb that coup tide, Prof Aning urged West African leaders to engage in quality intelligence and risk assessment analysis to inform preventive actions against such occurrence in the sub-region.
“What is failing West Africa and the Sahel is not the military sped chant for power; unfortunately, it is democracy and how we run it and implement it that is failing us…Pulling back from that break, unconstitutionality is when the military takes power and when people play games with the constitutional process… So we need to expand that physiology and to ensure we do things differently,” he stated.
Prof Kwesi Aning said the region is experiencing coups not because of the military thirst for power but how democracy is implemented in the sub-region.
The West African region has recorded three different coups in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso within a year. The most recent is the Burkina Faso coup, where military leader Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, together with some mutinies, overthrew President Roch Kabore.
Source: Newsroom Online