MILITARY COUP
ADEKEYE ADEBAJO: Africa’s history suggests army will not free Zimbabwe
Hatred of Robert Mugabe has blinded many Zimbabweans and analysts to the dangers of the military toppling an elected leader
As I sat down to write this column, news broke that Robert Mugabe had resigned after 37 years in power in Zimbabwe. Wild jubilation ensued in the streets of Harare and Bulawayo. But does this really represent a new dawn? The hatred of Mugabe has blinded many Zimbabweans and other analysts from recognising the danger of the military toppling an elected leader, no matter how flawed. Experience from the rest of Africa should engender caution at the prospect of hailing the military as democratic anticorruption messiahs.In Nigeria, politicians and civil society in 1993 called on Gen Sani Abacha to seize power in the naïve hope that he would somehow hand it over to the presumed winner of the June election, Moshood Abiola. Abacha did seize power, but jailed Abiola when he tried to claim his presidential mandate. More recently, in 2013, the political opposition and activists from civil society in Egypt cheered on the military coup by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that toppled the democratically elec...
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