NIGER COUP IS THE NEW DEMOCRACY FOR AFRICA Written by KEMKA S. IBEJI

In pure African societies, when strange things happen either consistently or otherwise, they either make inquiries from their wise people, or ask questions to their elders, or approach their diviners and deities for further inquisitions. But Africa has been run down so badly that every wonder brings confusions and expose our loss upon our culture and value system. The most dangerous effect of the colonisers on Africa is that we turn to our fools and intellectually impotent numbers for wisdom. What a disaster!

The foregoing has also clearly characterised the current ombrioglo in Niger Republic and the present ECOWAS leadership dance workout rhythm and off the rhymes impasse.

For all Thinkers, the first question to solving the problem is to understand the goal of political leadership. What is the essence of government? And since the pseudo colonisers, the ECOWAS, the hiding intruders, the US, France and the west, are arguing for democracy, what should have been wise enough is to define the concept of democracy and juxtapose the idea to what is happening in Niger Republic to guide necessary actions. 

Now the question is; what is Democracy?

Our study of Government as a course in secondary school took us through the definitions of government. One major definition that assumed wide reaching popularity is the one advanced by Abraham Lincoln of the United States of America. According to him, democracy is "the government of the people, by the people, and for the people". The attraction of this definition is its capture of the crux and nexus of the concept of democracy which is the people. This supports also the etymological meaning of the word "Democracy". The word, as said, is derived from the Greek words "demo" which means "the people" and "cracy" which means "government" or "rule". By implication, democracy means the government of the people. Generally speaking, democracy is the government run by the people themselves. This is why in its original practice in the Greek City States or the Pollis, deomcracy involved everyone and every citizen. It was direct democracy where the people gathered and took decisions by themselves and collectively so. Though democracy assumed the variant of indirect democracy as the state system got wider and more expanded that direct democracy became impracticable, it did not absolve or wash of the essence of democracy as that system of government that resides power with the people.

The valid inference from the above definitions of democracy is that any government that shelves and abandons the interest of the people cannot be regarded as a democracy. By this therefore, it follows that forms do no longer determine what should be permissible as deomcracy in displacement of the essence. What this means is that any government that is backed by the people and accepted by the citizens is democracy.

With the definitions yonder, it is very important to ask some important questions on the current Niger Republic junta;

Are they supported by the people?

What is the opinion of the majority of Nigeriens about the current military government?

The public opinion and realities on ground emphasise the people as central with regards to the essence of the current military government in Niger Republic. We could see the people of Niger demonstrating their acceptance of the military coup. It means therefore that the coup which ushered in the military government has done for the Nigeriens exactly what a valid, transparent, credible, free and fair election should do for the citizens which is to choose a leadership in accordance with the choice, whims and caprices of the citizenry.

When we decided to understand concepts, ideas and realities by their essences, we do so with the knowledge that essences represent the reality of the things. Essences are the features, characteristics and the nature of a thing which inher and do not change in the life of its existence. Essence is the definer of a thing; it is what makes a thing what it is.

This reminds us of Aristotle's rumination on the idea of matter and form. According to Aristotle, every being is made up of matter and form. For example, we all see that goat, sheep, cow and a lot of animals within their classification contain meat. But what actually differentiates them and makes each different from the other? The form of any being differentiates it from the other while matter is the stuff of which it is made. So whereas forms can change, matter remains. So matter itself is indeterminate but it is determined by form.

Relating this to government and its systems, democracy is the matter or essence while presidential, parliamentary, monarchy, military and other systems of government are forms in as much as they address the essence of the matter, which in the current situation is the people.

In other words, it refers to the dictum of teleology which focuses on the end or result of a action and not the processes or activities involved. And to the Niger military junta, we should be asking if the end of democracy is attained. Does the military government represent the interest of the majority of the people of Niger?

The pontifications of pundits and the narrative of the ordinary, collectively substantiate that the military junta enjoys the actual wishes of the people and so is the new democracy.

Against this backdrop, we put to the scale the Nigerian experience in the 2023 Presidential Election where the election took the form of democracy but yielded the matter of military system of government. The election performed a duty only done by military coups which takes power by force for the interest of a few. So the exchange of forms do not actually determine democracy as much as the matter or essence. So whether the system of government is presidential, parliamentarian, fascist, military or otherwise is immaterial. What classifies any system of government as democracy is citizens' participation and acceptance. This analysis discountenances and abandons the current system of government in Nigeria and many other African countries today as undemocratic even while they pretend to adopt features that usually characterise deomcracy. These features failed to deliver on their duties as enablers of democracy but gave results akin to whatever is not democracy and yielded undemocratic propensities thereto.

Upon this conceptual analysis, the framework of the Nigerien coup and its attendant government have appropriated the validity of their import as a democracy and can be asked to be universalised in Africa. This is essentially so as it tends to show lights on the pathways to African liberation from the jaundiced and genetically manipulated democracies of the West which were imposed on African countries. This Nigerien patterns of democracy therefore can be made an African democracy serving the rightful purposes of the real democracies to the people where the ownership of power is restored and returned to the people.

Power to the people!