By Lisa vives, Global Information Network<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEW YORK (IDN) As British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once said it, there\u2019s a \u201cwind of change\u201d blowing through the African continent. \u201cWhether we like it or not,\u201d he said, \u201cthis growth of national consciousness is a political fact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was the \u201860s, as countries across the continent were lowering the British flag and raising their national one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can still remember watching that flag,\u201d recalled Francesca Emmanuel, a former federal permanent secretary in the new Netflix documentary Journey of a New Colony. \u201cIt was the British flag I was watching coming down, coming down, and the Nigerian flag, going up, going up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was beautiful,\u201d she sighed. \u201cAt last, our great day has arrived\u2026 That feeling, it\u2019s something you can\u2019t describe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But 40 years later, the promises of independence are being challenged by postcolonial leaders unwilling to abide by their constitution when it\u2019s time to step down. Rising impatience by young people to again \u201craise that flag\u201d has sparked riots in the streets of Ivory Coast, Guinea, Cameroon and over a dozen other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Guinea, incumbent Alpha Cond\u00e9, age 82, ordered a crackdown on protests to his bid for a controversial third term. It resulted in the deaths of at least 50 in less than a year with \u201cdefense and security forces responsible for unlawful killings,\u201d says Amnesty International. Voting took place this past Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly in the Ivory Coast, protesters in the thousands filled the streets of the capital, Abidjan, when President Alassane Ouattara, in an about-face, announced he would seek a third term in office. Five months ago, the 78-year-old Ouattara had pledged to \u201ctransfer power to a new generation\u201d. Voting is scheduled for Oct. 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need to adhere to the constitutional provisions of our countries, particularly on term limits,\u201d Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari told his counterparts at a meeting last month. \u201cThis is one area that generates crisis and political tension in our subregion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe reluctance to giving up power is a growing trend across the continent,\u201d writes Congolese freelancer Vava Tampa, \u201ccausing joblessness, conflict, corruption, economic decline, and human rights abuses. Even Paul Kagame, the West\u2019s standard-bearer for \u2018good African leadership\u2019, changed the constitution to cling to power. In fact, according to the Economist\u2019s 2019 Democracy Index, more than half of Africa\u2019s 55 countries are ruled by a \u2018life president\u2019 or \u2013 in the words of the report\u2019s authors \u2013 \u2018authoritarian regimes\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other contested elections in the coming months include Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Uganda and the Central African Republic. Will a growing people\u2019s movement again be a \u2018wind of change\u2019? [IDN-InDepthNews \u2013 19 October 2020]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo: 82-year-old Alpha Cond\u00e9, President of Guinea, with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Lisa vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) As British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once said it, there\u2019s a \u201cwind of change\u201d blowing through the African continent. \u201cWhether we like it or not,\u201d he said, \u201cthis growth of national consciousness is a political fact.\u201d That was the \u201860s, as countries across the continent were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,16,93,32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"category-news","9":"category-politics","10":"category-regions","11":"category-sdgs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6136,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions\/6136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}