Compaore, Abba and history

After shooting his way to power in 1987, he initially ruled in a triumvirate with Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani. When he had consolidated his hold on power, he arrested both men in September 1989 on trumped up charges of plotting to overthrow the government. He tried and executed them summarily to become the […]

After shooting his way to power in 1987, he initially ruled in a triumvirate with Henri Zongo and Jean-Baptiste Boukary Lingani. When he had consolidated his hold on power, he arrested both men in September 1989 on trumped up charges of plotting to overthrow the government. He tried and executed them summarily to become the only Lord of the Manor.
He has managed to hold on to power via the four elections in 1991, 1998, 2005, and 2010. The people had long tired of him but he could not read the signs, opting to stage-manage a constitutional amendment that would allow him to seek another term in office. Of course, Burkinabes had had enough and they showcased their own version of the Arab Spring.
The cemetery of African politics is full of the graves of tyrants who overstayed their welcome and were forcefully ejected from their flight of fancy. Why does man make the same mistakes over and over again? “We learn from history that we do not learn from history”, says Hegel, the German philosopher; “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
How true!
You have to hear from Burkinabes themselves to understand why Compaore had to go: “In 1987, when Blaise Compaoré took office I was 17 years old,” said Hamidou Traore, a computer science student who was among the protesters outside Burkina Faso’s consulate in New York last Thursday. “I am now a father myself, and all this time, he has stayed in power. In fact my oldest daughter is now about to give birth to her own child — so we have had the same president for almost three generations. In these 27 years, you could have had as many as seven presidents in America. Why should we continue to accept this?”
We may not have heard the last of Compaore, though. He may yet have to keep a date with the International Court of Justice at The Hague if some of the demands of the protesters catch the ears of the new military junta cobbled up to replace the former president. Colonel Isaac Zida who was “chosen unanimously to lead the transition period” has his job cut out — quickly organise a return to democracy and return to the barracks. Otherwise the protesters may be re-energised to return to the streets.
Opposition groups were meeting yesterday in the capital Ouagadougou, warning the military not to hijack the public revolt against Mr Compaore. “The victory born from this popular uprising belongs to the people, and the task of managing the transition falls by right to the people. In no case can it be confiscated by the army,” they said in a statement.
Lt-Col Zida, used to be the second in command of the presidential guard and his closeness to the former president raises questions over the army’s intentions. Under the country’s constitution, the president of the Senate is supposed to take over after the national president resigns, with elections taking place between 60 and 90 days afterwards. But the constitution did not foresee a popular uprising as we have just witnessed. The African Union has called for a “civilian-led transition” culminating as soon as possible in “the holding of free, fair and transparent elections”.
It is clearly in Zida’s interest, if he has as much as half a sense, to quickly announce a transition and do his best to return power to an elected government as soon as possible.
Burkinabes have said goodbye to bad rubbish in the shape of Blaise Compaore, the man who had a dark past of cooperation with rebel groups in other countries, only to become the chief peacemaker in the post-election violence in Côte d’Ivoire, the civil war in northern Mali and securing the release of western hostages held in the Sahara by Al Qaida affiliated groups. History will not be kind to Compaore. The horde of protesters celebrating his ouster gives an indication that he will be classified with villains who trod the Burkinabe earth.
There are lessons in there for other African leaders. “It is a warning both to ageing regimes and for those trying to stay in power beyond constitutional limits,” says Thierry Vircoulon of the International Crisis Group.
Hard of hearing and more intransigent than the mountain goat, many of them would rather go the Compaore way than leave the stage gloriously. Mortal man, thy middle name if greed.
As the Burkinabes were milling in the streets, our very own Acting Inspector-General of Police Suleiman Abba was withdrawing security men attached to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal on account of his defection from the ruling PDP to the opposition APC. For a thoroughbred police officer who has paid his dues as he climbed the ranks in the force, Abba has just made his first serious error of judgement.
Abba’s statement had read: “In view of the recent defection by the Right Hon.  Aminu Waziri Tanbuwal, CFR, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress and having regard to the clear provision of section 68(1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, the Nigeria Police Force, has redeployed its personnel attached to his office.”
I refrain from joining the partisan fray when discussing Nigerian politics because there is the tendency in all the hoopla for people to read ulterior motives and invent conspiracy theories in reaction to otherwise simple analyses. But this one by the IG, where he played complainant, prosecutor, jury and judge is a throwback to the un-mourned Abacha days.
Mr Abba may not yet know it, but he has given signal to Nigerians that he cannot be trusted to be neutral in discharging his duties. That is a pity because once Nigerians see him as a partisan officer he becomes part of the problem they are trying to solve. A contributor to a phone-in programme said that much: “The IGP has shown he is a political officer… How can we trust him to be neutral in the 2015 general elections?”
My counsel: Think of history, brother; H-I-S-T-O-R-Y!