"Who does not say a word consents", we often say. Even if it can be debated in some cases. Still, we cannot take refuge in silence in the face of certain situations without giving reason to this expression. For my part, there can be no procrastination or compromise in the face of the coup d'Etat in Niger and the need to restore constitutional order. Even if the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) must finally reform or disappear. Africa in general and West Africa in particular has become the battleground between two visions of the world of the great powers, but above all two geopolitical visions which are strangely reminiscent of the Cold War period. And, unfortunately, whether we defend one position or another, this confrontation is only to the detriment of Africans themselves in the end. However, I will not support the “Pro-Russians”. And for good reason:
1 - Wagner and his mercenaries at work
If I elected Journalism as a Profession, it is certainly not to keep silent in the face of the turbulence of the world and its consequences. This is to enlighten the public as widely as possible. Even if it means taking a stand explicitly where it deserves or even walking alone behind the Forsaken flag. And, without forgetting, that the journalist is also a citizen of his State, of his community, of his continent. While acknowledging the Limits and responsibilities of the Journalist, the Citizen is called upon to replace the Journalist to also sometimes speak as a Citizen out of duty. You just need to be transparent.
As an African Citizen, I still find it very difficult to understand all those who talk about pan-Africanism and who are capable of NOTHING without calling on a foreign country. Is the New pan-Africanism reduced to espousing Vladimir Putin's Russian policy of settling accounts with the West on African soil? Or is it purely and simply to unbolt the failed regimes of civilians here and there in Africa, by dint of coups d'Etat financed and supported under the hands of Wagner and his mercenaries?
It is not because civilian regimes have failed that they should absolutely be replaced by military regimes by means of coups d'Etat. By using false pretexts.
In the entire history of Africa, Captain Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso is the only soldier to my knowledge who can be given satisfaction in his management of Power, all things considered. Compared to the number of coups that Africa has known, it must be admitted that there is no reason to turn to the barracks to get Savior. Especially when we have to assess the disadvantages in terms of deprivation of individual and collective freedoms, mismanagement and opacity, abuses, even crimes… And so on.
Captain Thomas Sankara remained the master of his Agenda, because he was first and foremost Transparency embodied in person. Even beyond his exceptional charisma.
Many Africans and especially those who harbor hatred against the West use the pretext of Western intervention in Libya to sell Vladimir Putin's Russia to Africa. If no member of the UN Security Council had listened to the African Union at the time, it was because it was neither in the interest of China nor of Russia, which have the right of veto and that Africa does not count in this cenacle. And why China and Russia, whose fate in Africa is so important to them, have still not validated the entry of Nigeria and South Africa or any other African country still within the said Security Council of the UN?
Muammar Gaddafi, Pan-Africanist? It is rather to be laughed at by those who know the itinerary of this otherwise racist megalomaniac towards Blacks and whose mere sympathy for them only has meaning and value when he derives political benefit from it or to flaunt his his megalomania. Also, I know what I'm talking about. Gaddafi is indeed an accomplice in the assassination of Captain Thomas Sankara, former President of Burkina Faso. Muammar Gaddafi, having allied himself for the occasion with the France of François Mitterrand in particular and many other African heads of state. Result of Muammar Gaddafi's actions: millions of deaths in Liberia and Sierra Leone. And, it's not over, let's talk about it: the coups fomented in Niger, Mali, Benin Republic, the war in Chad, etc. Each time a Head of State of Black Africa tried to resist him or for any other reason, he did not need to be asked to overthrow him. And why did he overthrow President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa in favor of Jacob Zuma?...Gaddafi, Pan-Africanist? Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, sentenced by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2012 to 50 years in prison for crimes against humanity and war crimes, should not be the only one to pay for the atrocities for which Muammar Gaddafi was also the main accomplice. In harboring, training, equipping and financing what spawned horrific civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Gaddafi, King of Kings of Africa, I will tell you about it... But let's first say King of Heads of State Jesters of Africa and not King of Kings of Africa.
Muammar Gaddafi is not only the African Heads of State who has done the most Islamic proselytism in Black Africa but also the one with whom Terrorism took root in Libya. Long before Algeria, the Army's brutal halt to the inevitable rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) pushed him into the maquis. And the consequences, we know them today.
Yes, indeed, I persist and still sign today in 2023 to say that my intimate conviction has not changed despite the insecurity raging in West Africa. A situation that is not due solely to the fall of Gaddafi, it must be said. On the contrary, Islamist terrorism was not born with his fall but rather with him. The archives of the contemporary history of Africa are there to testify to this. Still, it took until 2019, during the presidential campaign for his second term, for at least one man and not just any man, President Muhammadu Buhari, to confirm what has always been my intimate and deep conviction. President Buhari is not on his first stint at the head of the Federal State in Nigeria. A career officer from the State of Katsina and a devout Muslim, he knows who he is talking about when he mentions the late Muammar Gaddafi. “For Buhari, it is 'Gaddafi's unsavory legacy that still haunts Nigeria and other countries (…) Gaddafi ruled Libya for 43 years. He decided at some point to recruit people from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, and these young men were not trained to become masons, electricians , plumbers or others, but to shoot and kill *1,” Buhari again accused. And it is very little compared to the plots and the wars that he fomented in many countries of Black Africa. Gaddafi, the Pan-Africanist, is simply for cosmetic purposes for those who do not know the intriguing, resentful nature behind this man whose racism has never been in the shadow of any doubt. The Toubou - black peoples of Libya - are there to testify to this. As a political journalist, Muammar Gaddafi is undoubtedly the African head of state on whom I had to investigate the most for several reasons and particularly his involvement in the assassination of President Thomas Sankara. And President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria was not exaggerating when he said: "The bandits, who escaped from Libya after the death of their leader in 2011, have gone on to terrorism, including Nigeria and some other African countries are today the main victims,” Buhari said, in a lengthy interview he gave to Arise TV and which aired this week.*2” The implosion of Libya is not the cause of Jihadism in West Africa...it is only an aggravating factor. It is therefore important to point this out and not to fall into the amalgams that some maintain for ulterior purposes
It remains for some lauders of Muammar Gaddafi to dig deep into the archives of the contemporary political history of Africa before even starting to shout and flood the social networks with their biased and biased information. Which are only intended to mobilize public opinion by diverting them consciously or unconsciously from the deep reality.
Far be it from me to deny that the fall and assassination of Muammar Gaddafi on October 20, 2011 is really the responsibility of the West. Starting with France of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also bears a heavy personal responsibility in the Western intervention in Libya. Far from there. But it is unfortunately under this other fallacious pretext of Muammar Gaddafi, Savior of Africa, that Russia and its African cronies manipulate African public opinion for the benefit of Russia. Let's just say for the benefit of Wagner who was not until the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigojine on June 24, 2023 a structure of the Russian state, at least officially. The stated objective being to wrest Africa, at least Black Africa, to make it henceforth an area of influence but above all an economically profitable area for Wagner.
I did say Wagner and his mercenaries on the move. To think that it is by allying with the Russia of Vladimir Putin, Wagner and his mercenaries that we will first get rid of Pseudo-democracies in many African countries. In that then, only after we will establish more democratic regimes is absolutely to show great illusion or great naivety. Unless it's just a scam. If it's a scam, then it's the biggest scam of all time.
What mind aware of political realities and geopolitical issues could believe in such inanity if it is not for the heaps of idle young people, left behind, who have nothing left to lose, and who are being manipulated on purpose and without scruples?...Especially when a few thousand CFA francs are circulating below...This is how Wagner and his mercenaries buy those they consider to be opinion leaders or civil society, politicians who no longer know how to which Saint to devote oneself to, hungry intellectuals and journalists, etc. I know what I mean. And I never speak without evidence. Wagner not only employs mercenaries who use Kalashnikovs, there are also mercenaries who use Quills. And I had to fall out with many colleagues on the question of this dangerous liaison with many friends and colleagues on this subject in Burkina Faso. As long as it is, everyone must be aware of their actions and fully assume their responsibilities.
The New pan-Africanists in collusion with Wagner and his mercenaries have finally succeeded in overcoming the regime of President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, whom I supported with all my might both as a Journalist and a Citizen of ECOWAS, because I already feared that this would be the swan song of Democracy in West Africa. Despite the mistakes that could be attributed to him, I continue to believe that it was a serious mistake to overthrow President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. I never knew him before or even after, but he embodied a certain idea of change in Burkina Faso and West Africa that is mine. Namely that the military should not use coups to settle permanently in power as Captain Blaise Compaoré did. Ironically, this is what Vladimir Putin, Wagner and his mercenaries wish to reinstate in West Africa. Which will indeed make their own business, from the moment the military would have succeeded in swapping the Khaki outfit for the civilian outfit by means of biased electoral processes and fiddling for this purpose.
It was not President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré the problem. You shouldn't get the wrong fight or target. And the young people of Burkina Faso should not allow themselves to be manipulated without thinking. Some were hard-pressed against the Head of State because he had decided to bring the perpetrators of the assassination of Captain Thomas Sankara and others to trial, others because they were involved in the assassination of journalist Norbert Zongo or in the abortive coup attempt of September 2015, and still others for unknown reasons... These were just small internal quarrels.
Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, it was not Jesus Christ returned and reincarnated in him. Nor was it a question of signing him a blank check, far from that idea. That we were treated by all names was of no great importance for the position he occupied and he was well above that as one could see clearly despite certain exaggerations in this regard. Do not we say in our African traditions that the King is the Heap of garbage of his People! There were, however, three fundamental reasons why he deserved unwavering support in his fight against terrorism.
Firstly: the fact that some of his former comrades from the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) insisted on political actions to make him and his companions in the People's Movement for Progress (MPP) pay for their presumptuous rebellion against their old party and Blaise Compaoré, even though it was the only reasonable thing to do at the time.
Secondly: the fact that he decided to bring out the truth and do justice where it was necessary to do so before talking about reconciliation, especially in the Thomas Sankara case.
Thirdly: the fact that terrorist groups have deliberately decided to prevent him from peacefully governing Burkina Faso since his election to the highest office. Assuming even in a scenario of political fiction that President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré had resigned as well as his government as had wished Eddie Komboigo, the leader of the Opposition, the new President of the Republic was not going to leave as if by magic from his hat a new Army other than the one Burkina Faso had in its day to fight terrorists. This speech was therefore nothing but pure and simple demagogy. By making the only President of the Republic and Chief of the Armed Forces bear the blame, he was thus trying to hide the opprobrium that would be made to him by underestimating the sacrifice that the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) supported by Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP) in this asymmetrical war against terrorism imposed on them.
To this day, I personally remain very bitter about the way the Burkinabè people let things happen until the fall of President Kaboré. It was clearly coalition and combined forces that undermined the regime of President Roch Christian Kaboré before bringing it down. We were probably a number of informed observers of the Burkinabè political scene who knew that “Pro-Russian” soldiers were preparing to seize power from President Kaboré. All the warning signs pointed to it. Suspected of being Pro-French and tutti quanti, Russia bears a great responsibility in the coup against a democratically elected regime in Burkina Faso. By coming to power on January 24, 2022, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba had already yielded to pressure from pro-Russians both from civil society and from the Defense and Security Forces (FDS). And if he was overthrown in turn by another coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré on September 30, 2022, it is quite simply that he was not considered pro-Russian enough. Africa does not need dictatorships. And Vladimir Putin's Russia has nothing else to offer us in this regard. Perhaps the Russia of tomorrow, because Russia is not Vladimir Putin, even if he were considered the new Tsar. And, in matters of politics, no country is eternally condemned to dictatorship.
By Marcus Boni Teiga
*This article only reflects my position as a journalist and citizen of ECOWAS and not that of the editorial staff, which is a veritable melting pot of lively and committed but always constructive exchanges and debates. Not to be confused.
*1 - Aboubacar Yacouba Barm, Insécurité en Afrique de l’Ouest : pour Buhari, le responsable c’est Kadhafi, 10 Jan 2019, 15:00 : https://afrique.latribune.fr/politique/2019-01-10/insecurite-en-afrique…
*2 – Idem
To be continued…
