Poor governance and weak regional blocks feeds African coups – Former President Kuffor
Former President of Ghana, John Agyekum Kuffour, has indicated that poor governance and weak regional blocks are feeding African coups.
According to him, most of the sanctions put in place by regional blocks such as the ECOWAS, are seen as not deterrent enough or may not have any effect on the economic growth of countries with reported incidents of coups.
The former President said this in an interview with VOA News, adding the AU and the other regional blocks should begin to think seriously on how to give their constitutional provision that will put the country’s in order.
“In some instances where coups have happened, the government has tended to lapse his time in governance one way or the other. Either the government didn’t take care of their security arrangement or they also didn’t show appreciation of the geopolitics of their neighbourhood .
“Coups makers think your sanctions will not bite them economically or politically or socially, so, they just carry on in spite of the declaration of these regional groupings and, so, these associations or groupings must begin to think very seriously on how to give the constitutional provisions the bite so when they say don’t do it and you do it they can get you and so you know perhaps it is not profitable to try it,” he said.
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He added that he wouldn’t advise any body to hail a coup because it is not something that is liked.
“Its not an experience I will recommend to any generation, so I wouldn’t advise anybody to hail a coup detat. It comes from faceless people you do not know, you haven’t given anybody a thing to keep it for you and they may not be competent enough to keep it for you and yet they come, they use an opportunity and they come to impose their lives on you, is this what anyone will want?’
Former president Kuffor also advised the current government that it should try to live by the oath of the people as it is the underpinning of good governance and also use constitutional means to increase the tenure of government and stay in power if there is a need to do so.
“If you think the period is too short, use the constitutional means to convince the people to amend the constitution to lengthen the tenure a bit, but please don’t play smart and on the eve when you should be stepping down you say there is a third term.
“You do that and you push people into feeling they too can take things into their own hands,” he said.
Africa has seen a rise in military coups in the past year with takeovers in Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Sudan.
