The folly of giving Africa's tyrants time

West African leaders belatedly and lamely dealt with the continent’s latest political punks at the weekend. However, the punks remain in power. What they do, augurs ill for West Africa.

The punks are President Mamadou Tandja of Niger, 70, and 45-year-old Captain Moussa Camara in Guinea.

The former qualifies as a “political dirty old man”, while the latter, a self-appointed president, adds misguided youth enthusiasm to the notoriety. Both want absolute power.

On Saturday, leaders of the 15-member Economic Community of West Africa States (Ecowas) met in Abuja, Nigeria. The country isn’t, by any measure, a cradle of good governance. However, it can afford lavishes that brew “African solutions for African problems”.

Notoriety wagon

Other actors earlier included the UN, the African Union, and former Africa colonisers now in the European Union. The ‘world cop” that US President Barack Obama is bestowing long-discarded British Bobby-like demeanour joined the pro-democracy bandwagon.

Captain Camara boarded the notoriety wagon hours after President Lansana Conte’s death ended his 26-year rule in December. Institutions to handle succession existed.

The president of the National Assembly would take over and conduct elections in three months. Evidently, that proviso escaped some Guineans’ minds, including Captain Camara’s. He announced a military National Council for Democracy and Development’s takeover.

The usual word condemnations followed, beginning with the UN, the AU, et cetera. Ecowas suspended Guinea. There the matter rested. Late last month thousands of Guineans demonstrated against Captain Camara’s drift toward dictatorship. Troops killed 157.

Only then did the world, Ecowas and the AU included, remember a monster on the loose. Condemnations galore came. Ecowas’ head, Mr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, accused the junta of repressing the people with “arbitrary and irresponsible” use of state power.

Right from the start, the tell-tales existed that Captain Camara had sinister motives. He said he would restore democracy, hold elections, and return to barracks, and all this by suspending state institutions. His show trials came from a handbook Josef Stalin couldn’t have improved on.

Ecowas leaders have now imposed arms embargo against Guinea. That’s not original. France, for example, had announced one and human rights similarly suggested. Arms embargos serve little use. Somalia makes the point. In the meantime, the junta has had time to plan, so have its opponents. That’s a recipe for civil war.

President Tandja’s case is different but not in essence. The retired army colonel came to power in December 1999. The international community commended the elections as “fair and transparent. Supposedly, Niger’s democracy had matured.

That was until May, when President Tandja wielded a “peaceful sword” to life presidency, a referendum to end presidential terms. Ecowas’ punishment is not to support Nigerian candidates for international organisations’ elective offices. Yet President Tandja has divided the country, inherently explosive, possessing a spill over menace.

Their military backgrounds aside, President Tandja and Captain Camara have a history of destabilising governments. Captain Camara twice participated in soldiers’ uprisings. Mr Tandja took part in the 1974 coup that ousted President Hamani Diori. African leaders, especially in Ecowas, know those strains. The time to lean on the two was immediately their intentions became clear.