Coups de’tat: Why African continent must promote democratic governance – Osinbajo 

From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has stressed the need to promote democratic governance on the African continent against the backdrop of recent coups de’tat in West Africa.

According to a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity

Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, Osinbajo said this in Arusha, Tanzania when he met with his Tanzanian counterpart Dr. Philip Isdor Mpango, ahead of his participation at the inaugural session of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights for the year 2022.

The Vice President emphasized the need for other regional bodies on the continent and others in the global community to support actions already taken by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders.

According to Osinbajo, “we in ECOWAS have experienced in just under a year, four coups de’tats including attempts and it is disturbing because we felt we had put those things behind us, and now they seem to be coming back.

“It is something that we think has to do with more cooperation. AU has been very forthcoming (in condemnation) in saying that we cannot tolerate unconstitutional seizures of power. But sanctioning these coupists without any proper “teeth” has not been particularly effective.

“There might be a need for us to reach out to some of the regional bodies, development financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and the EU. The EU has been quite responsive but we think that we can do a lot more just in terms of cooperation, so there is an effective deterrent if everyone agrees that undemocratic change of government is unacceptable.”

On Climate Change and the attendant goal of net-zero emissions, he observed that “the major challenge is that the wealthier countries are abandoning fossil fuels and gas and some of them are already defunding gas projects.

“We in Africa will run into trouble because gas projects are important even for the transition. It is important for us to come together to oppose any situation where the wealthier countries insist that on account of going towards net-zero emissions in 2050, we should then abandon gas which is one of the major sources of energy for industry and clean cooking. We think that the wealthier countries are asking us to do what they didn’t do – use renewable energy for industry.”

Osinbajo however noted that “on the one hand, it is important for us to keep our focus on the transition to net-zero emissions, but it is also important for the world to know that we in Africa have two challenges – Climate Change and development.

“While we are interested in ensuring that we meet net-zero emissions target, we are also interested in ensuring that we develop.”

On the issue of the place of technology in economic growth, Osinbajo noted that “we believe very strongly that our growth would be technology-led,” explaining that for Nigeria especially, since 2016, “there are about 6 Nigerian companies that have become UNICORNS – companies worth over a billion dollars.

“All these companies started in 2016, including Flutterwave which was recently valued at over $3 billion. Technology is very important to us and we have investments in broadband infrastructure across the country and consider it to be fundamental to our economic growth.

“Even with what we have done, it is incredible how many new businesses in technology have come up, startups springing up every day. It is an exciting time for us, especially for those investing in technology startups across all sectors – education, health, and FinTech. There is also financial inclusion because there were many parts of the country that banks didn’t bother to go to, but with technology, we are able to reach all of those places.”

His Tanzanian counterpart,  Mpango,  commended West African leaders for their efforts to halt the menace of coups de’tat in the sub-region and also agreed that Africa can achieve more working in unison, noting that Climate Change is one area leaders on the continent need to work together to address.

“The apparent wish by developed countries to abandon fossil fuel is worrisome because we are still struggling to provide the basics. Our forests are disappearing because our people are still forced to use firewood for cooking, if we abandon gas energy, where do we go to?”

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