Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said he is “not surprised” by the recent wave of coups in West Africa, saying such revolts are as “a result of an accumulation of grievances over several years.”
“Do these events just happen, without an explanation?” Kagame posed during a September 12 interview with pan-African French weekly news magazine Jeune Afrique.
“I think they are often the result of an accumulation of grievances over several years. We can analyse them, find that these reasons are either valid or not, but there are inevitably factors that lead to this extreme (action). I’m not surprised,” he said.
The Rwandan leader said many African heads of state and government “do not realise what is happening until it is too late, when it has “reached a point of no return.”
Coup trigger factors
“Every change or implosion in these countries can be summed up in one word: governance. Governance and then security. This is what lays the foundations for a country’s development, provided they are managed in the right way,” Kagame told Jeune Afrique journalist Francois Soudan.
The president said condemnation of coups by regional bodies such as the African Union “does not solve the problem.”
“It is one thing to condemn coups, but Africa and the African Union must not ignore the factors that lead to them,” he said, explaining that most coups are triggered by poor leadership.
Kagame said he does not mind visiting countries led by transitional presidents who ascended to power through coups because “countries don’t boil down to their presidents.”
Eight coups in three years
Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Gabon are among the African countries currently being governed by military junta.
Africa has witnessed eight coups in the last three years. Guinea, Sudan and Chad are the other nations to have experienced coups in recent years.
While announcing power takeover, military in the mentioned countries cited poor governance, insecurity and misuse of public resources as the main reasons for staging coups.