Ideas and principles not people

Audio 03:53

Jean-Baptiste Placca, columnist at RFI, in 2020. Pierre René-Worms

By: Jean-Baptiste Placca

8 min

In Africa, the general tendency is towards the limitation of mandates, which involves transparent elections, and makes alternation possible.

This requires "strong democratic institutions, able to function, whoever the people choose to entrust their destiny".

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In an interview this week on France 24, Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou confirmed that he would step down from power at the end of his second term after the presidential election next December.

An announcement that is not new.

He had made this promise twice in the past.

Why does he insist so much on respecting the given word

In view of the spectacle offered by the sub-region in this month of October, it is to be feared that the peoples should expect to see their leaders more and more often seek to shape the Constitution, according to their wishes. desires, to last, or to settle in a presidency for life.

This distressing tendency is particularly threatening French-speaking Africa, which is gradually sinking into skepticism.

Hence, no doubt, this need, for Mahamadou Issoufou, to specify that not running for a third term is part of the commitments he has made to the Nigerien people.

And for all that, he refuses to point the finger at his peers who are running for a third term ...

You are no doubt familiar with this quote, which many attribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the United States: " 

 ."

Talking about people almost always puts you at risk of making mistakes, and sometimes even peddling… nonsense.

Telling the truth, on this continent, can sometimes earn you attacks, including very low ones, and Mahamadou Issoufou probably prefers to go away under the applause of his people and with the respect of Africans, rather than alienating himself some of his peers.

Why, then, does he say that each country is a special case?

He says it out of indulgence for those who give in to the temptation of the third term.

Because, in reality, there is basically no particularity distinguishing the peoples of Niger from those of Côte d'Ivoire or Guinea, for example.

The only peculiarity is the relationship of each leader to his initial oath: there are those who respect it, and those who, at the approach of the ultimate deadline, find the chair so cozy that they want to sit there to longer, if not for good.

The proof: in Niger, precisely, President Tanja Mamadou, in 2009, believed he had to free himself from his oath, by granting himself a third term!

That he, moreover, conquered by the stubbornness of a campaign for a so-called continuity, known as " 

 ", before being dislodged from the chair, in February 2010, by a military coup ...

The images of Abidjan and Conakry in recent weeks are strangely reminiscent of those of Niamey in 2009, and the protests of Ivorians and Guineans today hardly differ from those of Nigerians eleven years ago.

President Issoufou dissociates himself from the third term all the same ...

Yes.

But, many would have liked him to condemn, frankly!

You cannot imagine the sadness of a people alone, abandoned, faced with sometimes repressive leaders.

Even if the people, to get by, know they must first rely on themselves, instead of constantly calling for help from an international community with selective ears.

And when Mahamadou Issoufou says he does not want to judge, he judges, precisely!

Especially since it specifies that the general trend in Africa is the limitation of mandates.

Which goes through transparent elections, and make alternation possible.

This requires, he says, "strong democratic institutions, able to function, whatever the one to whom the people choose to entrust their destiny".

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