 Another coup d'etat in Africa, and this time it's in Guinea, as the military arrests President Kandy and dissolves the government. Plus, the federal government of Nigeria wants political and religious leaders not to set the nation ablaze with infidery rhetoric. Well, this is plus politics, and I am very animal. In 2021 alone, there have been three major coups in Africa, the Malian coup d'etat on the 24th of May 2021, the Chad coup d'etat which resulted in the death of long-serving leader Idris Debi. And most recently, in Guinea, special forces have seized power in a coup, arrested the president and promised to change the political makeup of the country. Well, joining us to discuss this is peace and conflict expert Westafiqa Nkasi Wardu, and political analyst and researcher Kambale Musavuli. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for having me. Well, I'm going to start with you, Kambale, because I saw your post on social media, and you had quite a lot to say. I mean, I know I've spoken to you about other issues in the DRC, but this time, Guinea. And there are so many question marks on this coup d'etat. But look, I hear that it has backed a lot of fear in the hearts of the ordinary civilians in the country. But then we also saw a lot of people celebrating in the streets. But let's start by looking at the reasons why the army have taken over. They're talking about high-handedness. They're talking about corruption issues and the personalization of institutions in the state. So let's look at the government of Kondi since he came into power in 2010. I mean, the claims provided by the couplers are valid claims from the people. They're not the first one to say that. The people of Guinea have been challenging the change in the constitution of the country. And just last year, there was an election there where the president of Guinea changed the terms to be three terms then. People were in the streets. The election was more with irregularities. People have been ousted. So they're just expressing the aspirations of the people. The challenge is the method they use to take control of the country. We've seen this before. I mean, when you look at Zimbabwe, people were jibberlading the position of Mugabe. Today, we see that the current rule of the country is not the aspirations of the people. So any revolutionary process that does not come from the people itself, we know through our own experience, our human history, that it will not result to fundamental change. But I can understand why the Guinean people, a section of them, a large section of the Guinean people, are celebrating the coup. Because their expression is small, they are happy. There is change in the leadership of the country, and they want a leadership that represents that. Interesting. So let's take a look at Conde's leadership style, which is something that you have pointed to. He spent decades in opposition to the previous leaders, and he's been in a position to previous regimes. He seemed to be someone who really wanted to lead the country. And finally, he was given an opportunity to do so. But then here we are. He took a coup d'etat to get him out of office. And obviously, you're saying, and we echo him what the people are saying, he did not live up to expectations. So I ask you, because I'm going somewhere with my question. Why do we have African leaders who keep pushing to want to lead the country, who wax very lyrical when it comes to the right things to say? But when it comes to actualizing those promises, we see a total different thing. The institutions are personalized. We don't have strong institutions and practice of a democratic rule that is personalized. That's one of the challenges in some of the countries, particularly in Guinea. It was really up to Conde to change that methodology of always looking at this providential leader who will fix everything. If the institutions were strong, the judiciary, the executive and other institutions wouldn't be where we are now. But then it's up to the African people to change it. We have the same issues in DRC. We just had a presidential election in DRC. It was more irregularities. An opposition leader has taken control of the country. And we're seeing that now, why it's changing the justices. That's only a reflection that there is not a strong civil society. There is not a strong left movement in the country. And because of the vacuum of a strong organization, the only organizing force is the military. And the military is filling up the vacuum and it's an instrument of violence. So we know that they are not going to resolve the fundamental aspirations of the people. But I think, in my view, I think those are superficial discussions. I think that we have to look at Guinea in the context of the region, its strategic position, its mineral wealth. What does this mean for the region, for the people? Just if you look at the statement that came out of the meeting today, the former ministers and the couplers at the meeting today. And they came out with about seven points of things that's going to move forward. One thing that took my attention is, I think it's point five or six, where they said that there will not be a curfew of mining operations in the country. So there are all these changes, but somehow for money, people can still mine. So that brings the question, why? But if you shut down mining activities, because I see that, you know, or is a big mineral resource in Guinea, and you can't really just shut it down because that seems to be an income earner. So if you shut it down, then it means that you're obviously declaring a state of emergency on the economy of the country. Correct me if I'm wrong. This is 24 hours after the coup. Let's think about it. The borders are shut down. One of the major decisions, 24 hours after the coup, is around mining operations. We're not thinking about the well-being of the people. People were not in the streets. How many people have that? What is the situation in the country? One of the major decisions right after the coup is to make sure that the mining operations are not affected. That tells me that they are also listening to outside interests, not just the interests of the people there. But beyond that, too, I think we can even speak about those who did the coup. A particular special force within the military, not under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defense, trained by the French, and particularly Africa, U.S. Africa. They've been trained in Burkina Faso extensively. Some of them have actually come to the War College in the United States for training. So this is a unit that does not, in my view, have allegiance to the Guinea and people. So are you supporting that the U.S. government and the French authorities have a hand in this coup? And what would be their benefit? I'm going to go to Cassie in a bit, but I want you to because you seem to have this theory that there might be the hand of Issa in this particular matter. So explain to me why you think the U.S. and maybe the French forces are involved. I don't think that Guinea and soldiers, or Guinea and military, are training French and American soldiers. So that's something for us to be clear. Whenever I'm speaking about the military training of the soldiers, the Americans and the French allow these military forces to have military training where they are involved in coups. We've seen that in Mali. We've seen that in Chad. When we look at the region, why is, I believe, that Guinea is important. There is presence of China. What would be the interest of the United States in Guinea? China has a $20 million deal for infrastructure and mineral exploration. There are other deals also happening around iron ore. They have the largest iron ore in the world. And I'm sure some have followed the case of the diamond, the Benis diamond, the Israeli businessman called the Corruption. There are many interests, particularly many interests, that is a stake in Guinea and that is also tied to Chinese operation. If the United States and France is involved, it will be clearly to counter China in the region. And that's how I would like to, from at least my analysis, to say it's not just a local issue, a regional, it does have international ties. Cassie, looking at democracies across the African continent and a bit to stabilize it side by side with these core attempts, mostly as a result of bad leadership. Will it be, what will be the future of the constitutional government in West Africa and the African continent at large if we continuously see these calculated core attempts and to borrow from what Kambali is saying, that we cannot just jessison the fact that there is something in Guinea that the rest of the world might be eyeing. So, it does put a very dangerous trend, really. It is something to be worrying about. In the past four years, we've had a specific number of coups. We've had coups in Babwe, we've had coups in Mali, in Chad, in Sudan, and now in Guinea. So it really, really is troubling. But it does tell a particular story. I mean, as worrying as this trend is, it tells a particular story. One, it really points to the fact that one of the issues around that is coup intervention, military intervention in African countries. I mean, we see that talking about corruption with the poor leadership. We see the fact that these particular leaders that were victims of coups were not leading their countries well. They were actually bad leaders. So that is one of the troubling things. Second, as Kambali has stated, is the point that there is an issue of institution. We have a lot of institutions in Africa that are unicycling. We have a tendency to really make the actual leader institution rather than build institutions ourselves. And so when we get to that point, we see where there is really no institution to hold the particular leader in check. I mean, you ask the question about the fact why African leaders would pine to become leaders, and then they would go in and then they wouldn't do the work. And it's really about institutions. And when we talk about institutions, we're talking about the things like the police. We talked about the various kinds of government like the judiciary, like the legislature. I mean, these are particular institutions that should hold or keep in check the particular leaders. And we have a situation where one of the major casualty of African leadership, the particular leadership in Africa, are these institutions. Because when you become a strong man, you become an all-in-all. But then ultimately, that leads to an issue. It leads to an issue where you have the military, well-trained and strong, and they are feeling to become the only institution that is untainted and badly untouched by the leaders that are able to intervene. But that's a problem because we cannot, if we are going to build democratic institutions and stable government in Africa, we cannot depend on the military consistently because it puts us in a situation where, one, people see that the power does not decide on the people anymore. So if the people cannot decide leaders for themselves, or in a sense decide the change of leadership by themselves, and it will depend on military intervention, that could lead to a really serious situation because it could, for instance, lead to a point where African leaders begin to depend on the military. They may see the military as the people that they should be rather than the people. But one of the major points to note here is that there is often a correlation between unstable democracy, unstable leadership, and if there's some coup d'etat in Africa. I mean, for example, in the past 14, in the past four decades, we've had about 100 coup d'etats and 200 successful, 100 successful coup d'etats and 200 attempted coups in Africa. That's really, really troubling for a particular nation where East Wales independence was in the 1950s. So it is very, very troubling. And it creates an avenue of instability. It creates an avenue where people do not see, where people do not have hope in democratic institutions where elections and political participation do not need to be desired at all. And that's really, really troubling for the African continent. It's really, really troubling for the African Union and for some of the other regional bodies like the Echoas and SAJC as well. I just want to push you a little bit more on the issue of strong institutions because that's something we play around with in Nigeria. We say, oh, we don't need strong men. We need strong institutions. We just throw it around there, but we never realistically do anything about it or push for it. And so from what you and Cambale have said, yes, it's the obvious that you're stating, but if I have pushed, for example, our President Bahari has been trying to run for this office four times, finally, his president. And I know that you're not in Nigeria but you understand what the Nigerian system is facing right now. I mean, the Naira is taking a deep dive. The economy is in its worst state. Insecurity is rife. The list is endless. But when we say we want to change something, this change obviously is supposed to begin with that leader. And shouldn't that be handsing off the legislature, handsing off the judiciary, allowing these systems to thrive and be independent somewhat? Especially in Nigeria, we have the Independent National Electrical Commission. We have the ICPC. We have the EFCC. How independent are they? And if a leader is not able to project that change, how are we supposedly to get these strong institutions? Are they supposed to fall from the sky? So thank you very much, Naira, and that was a very good question. But the attitude is involved here. In Africa, in Nigeria and just like in New York, in other African countries, we are being deprived of not investing in strengthening institutions over time. Institutions are not built in the day, or built in the tenure of the particular president. It's something that needs to be done consistently over time. So whatever we say in Nigeria, or in some other African countries, like we say in Guinea and Manu right now, is nearer than this is of neglect of those institutions. So that's one. And so we come to the point where there is a particular leader that sort of pulls the thread and the whole edifice comes falling down. Because none of these things, or none of these institutions have been built on a solid foundation. That's one. Secondly, it's also important for us to understand that how do we build institutions? Yes, institutions are manned by people, but institutions are also as a result of law, as a result of principles, as a result of documentation that are put in place where everybody decides to comply by this particular set of rules. And when we do not focus on building those institutions, we come to a situation where the leader has now become the strongman. We become the situation where citizens in Africa focus exclusively on the strongman, or the strength of the particular leader. I mean, we saw that in 2015 elections where the former president was led, led a lot of elections because people felt he wasn't strong enough. By investing in institutions, by patiently building on the judiciary, investing not just resources, investing in time and skill on the judiciary, in the police, in other civil institutions like in legislature, we're essentially trying to create a system that is not part from that leader. I mean, therefore in fact, in the general installation, I mean, I like to call it the installation in the U.S., where people actually wanted to present the complete handover of the validation of the application of results in the U.S. It was people. I mean, even though there was a particular situation where the president of the country was not only in support of the non-certification process, but the institution held. And that is an example of how institutions have spent a decade in building. It comes from different systems of government, different successive governments coming, playing their own rules, playing their own rules. But it's also about bravely of the particular people that are being led to man this institution. And we've seen examples of brave judging in the territorial setting, not just in Africa. I mean, in Nigeria, we've seen that in Nigeria. We've seen that in so many other countries as well. We've seen institutions, we've seen situations where particular strong persons have actually put their thumbs up and said, no, this is not how it should be done. But the problem is that if we do not create an institution where the people that man a particular institution are incentivized, are promoted to actually ensure that these institutions do the things that they are meant to do, in fact, institutions that we currently face right now, where essentially institutions are poor, institutions are common, and the strong man's policies is what takes place. And we see particular presidents or political leaders that stay over, stay there welcome. They do not have problems in essentially destroying the ground on that, the constitution that holds the fabric of society together. And so that's the kind of problem that we're going to be using. Well, my next question was for Kambali, but I think we lost a connection with him. Hopefully we can get him back. Well, this next question, I'm going to put it to you. Democracy is great and all. We're all thriving and striving to, you know, get to the point where America has gotten to, and even America after 200 years still has, you know, seething problems with, you know, their democratic system. We know we also put the people's interest above every other thing, but how practicable is democracy in Africa today, knowing where we're coming from and where we are right now, because it's still taking a long time for us to integrate, you know, the democratic system. We still have that autocratic and, you know, dictatorial spirit, you know, in the guise of a democracy. So must we be democratic to have good leadership? Can we not have good leadership without it being democratic? And I'm not saying that we should just send democracy in its entirety, but I'm asking if it isn't really practicable across the continent, should we be looking at other forms of government as it may work within those different domains? Yeah, so I've heard this argument before. I mean, in a lot of times, you know, especially from Africa, the reason democracy is still in Africa is not because of democracy. It's not a cause of democracy. It's the cause of people that have essentially refused to build. Democracy is not a magic wand or a silver bullet that makes all the problems go away. That's not what happened. It involves work. It involves voting of the police and doing the actual work that you require to do. What we have is a situation where we have particular governments in Africa taking little bits and pieces of what is supposed to be called democracy and then waiting for people to run and assist in the democratic system of government. Democratic principles are founded on the pillars and the foundations of human rights, right? And the fact that everybody had to say in how the government works, in political participation, in elections being held frequently, in the principles of fairness and justice and equity. I mean, these are particular strong foundations and pillars of democracy. And if you can find any other system of government that guarantees this, but up until now, democracy is the best form of that. Even in situations where there are particular countries that operate the monarchy system of government, they have to find a way to incorporate democracy. Because you cannot depend on the will or the benevolence of one person to guarantee on this life. Human nature has shown that that is never possible. So we need to have a system where everybody understands what's happening and everybody knows that if there is a problem, they know where to seek the dress. Power cannot be concentrated in any one man or in any one individual. That is the way for people to do that. I think we have Cambale back. And this question, I reserved it for you, but Cambale, if you can hear me, let me just go with this question. Now the United Nations has condemned the cool attempt, the cool plot in Guinea. The government of Nigeria has done the same. And several other people have talked about it. But let's talk about France. Let's talk about the Francophone countries and what's been happening. You're from DRC. And lately we've seen Francophone countries experiencing different kinds of problems, whether it be a cool, whether it be conflicts, whether it be gun-running, all sorts of things are happening. And I'm saying most, if not 80%, of Francophone countries. What is France doing as a partner to these Francophone countries that have doused tension, apart from boots on the ground. What is France doing to douse the tension in its former French colonies? Because we seem to see a trend of sorts in all the Francophone countries on the African continent. Beyond even the Francophone country and the earlier comment you made around the statements, let's not forget that the DRC, the president of the DRC is the chairman of the African Union this year. What is the statement condemning the coup? Are you still there, Cambale? I think that we have network connection issues there. So I'm just going to leave that question for Cambale to come back to. But let me go to you, Cassie. If people seem to be losing hope in the ballots, they're losing faith in the systems of governments, in the judiciary. Do we see more of these coup attempts happening across the continent? Because, yes, we see the people on the streets of Gili rejoicing. It seems like, oh, the army has done them a favor of sorts. But then who holds the army accountable at the end of the day? That's one side of the question. The other side is, might we see many more African countries that seem to be oppressed having these same kinds of coup plot attempts? Mariah, I said earlier that this is a dangerous trade. One, because if people if we're consistently coping on the military to intervene in democratic processes, that's trouble. One, because the military has never been known for each democratic term, it's a democratic place because it has areas to respect for human rights and all of that. It has never been known for that. So we have a situation where we're constantly exchanging one evil for the other. That's essentially what is going to happen. But also, the other moral part is that if we have a situation, because African leaders, the things about African leaders is that they are highly adaptive. They can adapt to any changing situation. If we have a situation where we need to become sort of that last for the common man, and I refuse to accept that there is a change in me, we would get to the point where leaders become accountable to the military and to the military leaders, rather than the people. So you have this pseudo-democracy where there is a democratic government but they are constantly controlled by military backers that for the point of, for the sake of diplomacy would not want to put themselves out there as leaders. So that does have to warrant you. And I have to raise the other question. I mean, this is four years down. We've seen this happen in Zimbabwe. We've seen it happen in Somalia. In Sudan, like that. We've seen it happen in Mali. We've seen it happen in Chad and in Guinea. And I think that it's going to keep happening, particularly in some of the countries. The problem is that we need to do much more than condemn this kind of act. And one of the ways that we can do that is actually ensure that the condemnation even before the military intervention takes place. If the AU and the other regional governments should not only blind eye to particular situations where governments fail, where elections are big, that people and the leader perpetrators serve in office. We need to begin to call out some of these issues and provide some sort of opportunity for action. And for particular leaders of Australia, welcome. Well, Kasih Woldu is a peace and conflict expert in West Africa. And of course, we lost Kambali Mosa Valley where he is a political analyst and a researcher. Thank you very much for being part of the conversation. Thank you. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a short break and when we return and they are not just blowing hot and cold on political and religious critics, they're saying that they need to put an end to the kind of rhetoric that they're putting out. We'll get to find out more after this break.