Global Peace Ambassador, Milton Kambula, has expressed fear that the recent military coups in West and Central Africa may stretch to the entire African continent sliding back to the 1960s – 1980s when it was the way to change African governments.
Amb Kambula’s comments follow the recent military overthrow of President Ali Bongo of Gabon ending his family’s 55-year hold on power in the Central African State.
The Global Peace Ambassador said that the unfortunate incidents in West Africa are largely due to overstaying in power by leaders who have failed to offer good leadership that would ensure full utilization of African resources and indigenous people to get united to transform Africa economically, politically and socially.
“Leaders that traded on conflict used violence and guns to get to power and have overstayed in office with limited development outcomes on the continent must learn from what is going on right now in African countries. See what is happening in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Gabon: the wave of coups and war may expand because people are discontented with unvisionary [sic] leaders together with foreign masters they represent,” Kambula said.
“When people resort to the use of force especially through coups, guns, bombs and identity-based politics to capture power, they will offer the same type of leadership that will continue making Africa unstable both economically, politically and socio-culturally,” Kambula said.
He asked the army not to continue being tempted into capturing positions of their bosses as this may become a culture of getting into offices hence frustrating peace, democracy, rule of law and aspirations of local citizens.
Amb Kambula said that most African leaders who captured power through coups and wars lack a clear vision, and because of this they change constitutions and structures to match their selfish desires and end up resorting to looting, conflicting, misdirecting and killing citizens especially those that try to provide alternative views to the development of the country.
He noted that today the same leaders who called for Pan-Africanism and Nationalism are the same leaders killing African innovators, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, policymakers, scientists and persons with divergent views.
“Our experience now is that we are faced with a different generation of thinking and dreams; we risk the future of our nations in trying to overstay in power while we have very limited capacity to cause social cohesion, peace and economic prosperity, which the current generation is desperately demanding,” Kambula observed.
He added: “Our Presidents can’t hold anymore because less development is expected out of them. Their empty speeches don’t transform society. The focus must be handing over power after 7 years of service; and if possible, even much earlier if 40% of the population is not joining a super income economy.”
The Global Peace Ambassador highlighted the fact that once leaders stay long enough in power, they become preoccupied with only one agenda of keeping the regime in power which undermines the development agenda.
“We must give the opportunity to peacefully hand over power to the next generation as this will give a chance for peaceful transition and opportunity to strengthen the foundation that previous leaders have built over the years. This would form the basis for the successful performance of the next regimes in power,” Kambula suggested.
He added that it was time for the African Union to further push for the Integration of Africa to become the United States of Africa under one president.
Amb Kambula further suggested that Africa should be occupied with fighting wars around the transformation of education outcomes, opening borders for the same tax, pricing and currency, as well as bringing indigenous Africans into a super economy by allowing value addition, industrialization and celebration of extended Africa family values on wider scale replacing religions, laws and politics that do not benefit Africans.
To date, a total of 9 coups have happened in West and Central Africa since 2020. These countries include; Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Mali, Sudan, and Gabon while attempts in Guinea-Bissau and Gambia were foiled.