Coup d'etat retarding economic gains in West Africa

The economies of West African countries have retrogressed for many years due to unnecessary military interventions in the subregion. Military officers have been employed by the state to defend the territories of their countries and take advantage of the guns and ammunition given to them by the state through the taxes of the taxpayer to overthrow the legitimately and democratically elected civilian governments.

They then attempt to govern the country with the promise to promote probity accountability and so on but end up corrupting themselves, stealing, and amassing wealth for themselves and their families. Some are even clueless and have no training or education in economic management and governance and as a result, appoint corrupt and self-seeking civilians to high positions who end up stealing the wealth of the state.

The economic community of West Africa has suffered immensely from military uprisings which have in effect, collapsed and destroyed the economies of member countries.

For instance, some of the poorest countries in the world are found in West Africa. These include Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso and these countries have experienced uncountable coup d’états and coup attempts.

Whenever a coup d’etat occurs in a country, like Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, or Guinea, these countries’ borders are closed, and therefore are unable to transact or engage in cross-border trade with neighboring countries or the business world. Besides, these countries lose aid and grants from the Western world and this heightens the plights, of the poor and most deprived in the country.

In addition to that, investors refuse to invest in these economies, and in effect, their economies collapse causing huge unemployment rates, deteriorating health services and health care infrastructure, increasing poverty and crimes rates, and also propelling extra judicial killings and murders by military leaders in a bid to suppress civil unrest and civil uprisings. This also causes an opaque economic system with no transparency and accountability in the economic management systems.

We have seen and experienced some opaque brutal and corrupt military governing systems in West Africa under some powerful dictators like the Late Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, Yahaya Jammeh and the likes.

The implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trae Area, AfCFTA was seen as an economic program that could be used to encourage and promote inter-regional trade on the continent to boost trade among member countries.

However, countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, and the like with military juntas could not be part of this program following their suspension from the regional bodies. This is jeopardizing the gains made and retarding the progress made. The transfer of power through the use of military force has a common denominator and that’s poverty.