Episode Notes:

Last weekend, the military seized power in Gabon, making it the sixth Francophone country in Africa in three years to fall under military rule. President Ali Bongo, whose family has been in power in the West African country for over fifty years, was deposed by Brice Ngeuma, who was sworn in as president this week. Ebenezer Obadare, the Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations joined the WarCast to tell us more about what happened.

[0:49] What happened in Gabon?

[3:38] Will there be change?

[5:38] Will there be an election?

[7:06] What kind of leader will Brice Ngeuma be?

[7:59] Why are so many countries returning to military rule?

Episode Transcript

Erin O’Brien: My name is Erin O'Brien and I'm the membership editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to The Warcast, the members only podcast for what you need to know now. Last weekend, the military seized power in Gabon, making it the sixth Francophone country in Africa in three years to fall under military rule. President Ali Bongo, whose family has been in power in the West African country for over 50 years was deposed by Brice Nguema, who was sworn in as president yesterday. Ebenezer Obadare, the Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations joined The Warcast to tell us more about what happened. Welcome to The Warcast, Ebenezer.

Ebenezer Obadare: Thank you for having me.

Erin O’Brien: Why don't we start off by a little overview on what happened in Gabon last week.

Ebenezer Obadare: There was a coup d'etat, a problem not unexpected, giving what has been happening in other parts of West Africa. The only wrinkle on the surface here is that the reaction has been slightly different. And I'll get into why the reaction has been slightly different shortly. With the Nigerien coup, there was this sense of a very positive process being arrested all of a sudden. President Bazoum was not exactly a model of democratic governance in Niger, but there was this sense that the country was headed in the right direction. And elections had been held. He had succeeded someone. Elections was going to be held. He had a nickname, the Gender President, signaling the fact that he had done a lot to advance the interest of women in the country. So there's a lot of riding on his survivor as a democratically elected president. And that sort of dictated the way people responded to that.

The reaction to this one has been slightly different. The reason why is that, as you mentioned earlier, the same family has been in power for the last 51 years. Because of that it's been extremely difficult to get people going because it's raised this very fundamental issue with the one I addressed in my Wall Street Journal article, which is, are you defending a democratically elected government or are you defending a dynasty that has been in power for half a century? And it's been very difficult for people to swallow. So when Ali Bongo himself, I don't know if you've seen the 51 second video when he reached out to the public, made an appeal and said, "Make some noise, make some noise. Come on, fight for your democracy." Everybody's like, "What democracy are you talking about? We don't recognize this as a democracy.

Last week we had an election. We thought it was a disputed election. People didn't think it was... The opposition condemned the election. And we don't see any difference between life under this supposedly democratic regime and the military that has come to replace you." So, that's the major difference here. But the other thing is the coup has been condemned. The African Union has suspended Gabon, the EU has condemned the coup. Different international organizations have condemned the coup, but there's been this sense that they've just been doing this just because this is what everybody expected that they would do. The condemnation has lacked the kind of vigor and passion that you had with the Nigerien coup in July. That's the situation right now.

Erin O’Brien: So, could this new military government represent any kind of change or is it more of the same?

Ebenezer Obadare: The answer is no. And I'll tell you why. There are two reasons. I don't know if you know this. The newly sworn in president is the cousin of Mr. Bongo. The Bongo regime is over. The Bongo regime continues. So there is that. But the larger point here, and something I've stressed in my own work, is about the futility of putting your eggs in the basket of military rule. I can't say this enough, Erin. The jury is in on military rule in Africa. The late Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikilopa Kuti in Nigeria had this song, and he was trying to summarize the legacy of military rule. And he had three words. Sorrow, tears and blood. That's what is in store for the people of Gabon. I'm sorry to say that as a Nigerian.

In Nigeria, we've seen that over and over again. That game of musical chairs. When one soldier comes in and says, "I'm going to start afresh, I'm going to put the country on this path to greatness. Everything's going to be sweetness and lights. Hand over the reins to me." And then we know what happens next. This does not happen. This is what is most likely to happen in Gabon. The frustrations of the people and the fact that they don't want a continuation of the Bongo dynasty, those sentiments, those frustrations have to be recognized. They're legitimate. And I think it explains why people have been trooping to the street celebrating the fact that Bongo is no longer in power. However, I think the Gabonist people are in for more disappointment, if the previous record of the military in other parts of Africa is anything to go by.

Erin O’Brien: So you don't think that the election that is promised by the new president will happen then?

Ebenezer Obadare: Frankly, I don't. See, I've seen this script before. This is what you do when you want to secure legitimacy. You want to get the international community off your back. You want to be able to reverse the ban imposed by African Union. You want to worm your way back into the comity of nations. What do you do? You give people... you tell them what they want to hear. "We're going to organize, we're going have a transitional government. Everything's going to be done within six months, or it's going to be done in a year. It's going to be done in two years." What you're going to find is that...

So, one or two things. Either the man currently the head of state is going to run as a civilian and then impose himself. We've seen that happen so many times. Or there's a parallel school in which that guy is overthrown and then someone else takes over as we've seen in other places. But the long and short is that this does not bode well for the people of Gabon. And look, and I say this, I don't say it in jest. They've suffered enough. A country of 2.4 million people, 90% of which is forest, rich in cocoa and oil. They should be doing much better. But the story of Gabon, as I mentioned in my Wall Street Journal piece, is the story of most post-colonial African countries. And I fear their road is about to get even more rough.

Erin O’Brien: And briefly, why don't you tell us what kind of leader do you expect Brice Nguema to be.

Ebenezer Obadare: As a soldier, that's what you need to know. Soldiers do not have the tools to govern. The work of a soldier is to defend the country. I mean, it's in the Constitution. Even when things are bad, the answer to bad governance is good governance under the auspices of representative government. That framework has to be there. The guy could be well-meaning, he could well surround himself with people who really want to turn things around in the country. The fact is that he lacks the equipment, he does not have the resources, he does not have the temperament. And if the kind of dynamic that I expect will be set in motion, is set in motion in the country, the country is here for a very, very interesting time.

Erin O’Brien: And finally, I want to talk about what you wrote about in this Wall Street Journal article you've mentioned, which is, as I noted in the intro, this is yet another in a series of coups that have occurred on the African continent in the last few years. I mean, what is behind this wave? Why are so many countries returning to military rule?

Ebenezer Obadare: That’s a great question. So, let's go into this in some detail. If you think about Mali... By the way, all these countries are former French colonies, so there seems to be something going on there. But if you think about the Sahel proper, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, the common denominator is the Islamist insurgency, which led to a radical weakening of state capacity, which created room for military rule. So, that's kind of specific to those countries. Gabon is different. Even though it belongs to this spectrum, but it's different. Different in the sense that there's no Islamist insurgency. What you have is a dynasty that has been pretending to be a democracy. And I think that's what should get us worried and why other African countries may want to be looking above their own shoulders.

The way people have turned out in Gabon, the streets of Libreville, basically chanting support for the military at the swearing in ceremony of the new president, showing that support for the soldiers should worry all of us. Should worry all of us, because it speaks to the fundamental grievance of many Africans with nationally democratic states that the continent has been having over the last two or 30 decades. These so-called democracies, have not been delivering on the promise of jobs, of security, of employment, of stable democratic governance. On the contrary, what people have been complaining about legitimately is that they've been frustrated and that it's a very narrow elite, has hijacked power and accumulated resources for itself is the story, not only in Gabon, it's a story even in a place like South Africa. It's a story in Uganda, it's the story in Zimbabwe.

So we should be worried to the extent that the Gabonese coup is a departure from what you have in the Sahel, insofar as the coup in Sahel is a function of the Islamist insurgency, which has led to the weakness of the state. There appears to be something much more fundamental and much more generic in the Gabonese case, and we should all be alert to it.

Erin O’Brien: Unfortunately, that is our time, but it really does seem that there's quite a lot to look out for in the coming weeks and months. Thank you so much for coming on.

Ebenezer Obadare: Thank you for having me.