and military officers. Such was the situation existing in Nigeria between 1966 and 1999.
On assuming office as president, I decided to put an end to these incessant coups. I asked the military to submit the list of all officers who had either participated in coups in the past or benefited in the dividends of coups by being appointed to political office as governors or ministers. Not knowing what the list was meant for, the military faithfully compiled it and submitted it to me as the commander-in-chief and chairman of council of each of the arms of service. Ninety-three officers in all were given six hours’ notice of retirement on a Friday, and ordered not to spend the Friday night in uniform or in barracks to prevent adverse reaction. The following Monday, the service councils met to ratify the retirement of all the officers. From my vantage position and background as a battle-tested and war-victorious general, I knew that an officer out of uniform and barracks is like a fish out of water, and their power and influence would be greatly diminished.
The retirement of these 93 officers all in one day was salutary. It meant that taking part in a coup or benefiting from one could catch up with you, no matter how long it would take, and for as long as you are alive. Their retirement did not stand in the way of any of them entering public life or making progress in it. Some of them later entered politics and became elected governors; some went into parliament; others got appointed as ministers or ambassadors. The idea was not to punish them for life but to exclude them from positions in the military where they could be coup planners, coup plotters, coups executors or coup beneficiaries. And once an officer has tasted the trappings of a political life, of living in a government house, with free food and so on, he would easily look for excuses to want more if he is in a position to make it happen.
The fact that since 1999 there has not been a coup or an attempted coup in Nigeria speaks of the effectiveness of the measures taken to put an end to the destabilising influence of coups on the political life and dispensation of Nigeria. Before 1999, and since independence, the longest that a democratic dispensation had lasted was six years – from 1960 to 1966.
It has neither been easy nor perfect, but there are improvements and evidence of learning among the political class. Any bad signs and misconduct would have to be carefully monitored. For those countries with similar experiences to Nigeria’s, there is a need to find an effective and relatively painless way of curbing the incidence of coups and corruption by the military.
Preventing civilian coups, developing a democracy playbook
There is a meaningful debate to be had about the value of democracy to African countries and their leaders as they wrestle with the serious development challenges that face the continent. This is moot, given that we are seeing a pause in democratic progress and consolidation, as evidenced by Freedom House data, including how constitutions have been changed to allow incumbent leaders to serve for longer and increasing allegations of rigged elections.
One argument used to delay democracy is that it distracts from difficult development decisions but that, over time, with increased national income, it becomes a luxury that can be afforded. Put differently, this is sometimes rendered as the view that dictatorship can be optimal for poor countries until they reach a particular development benchmark, sometimes registered in terms of per capita wealth.31 However, econometric analysis does not support the view that ‘democracy becomes a hindrance to economic growth below a certain threshold of development’.32 Neither does this argument explain why Africa has slipped towards increasing authoritarianism despite more than a decade of high economic growth.
The slide towards authoritarianism is less about a binary choice, as noted above, between autocracy and democracy, but entails more subtle interventions to change the course of an election or institutional process. Such interventions are seldom considered significant enough by the international community to warrant censure, let alone intervention. But usurping the democratic process has become an art form in Africa, where the losers and victims have little voice and, in the words of former Zambian president Guy Scott after his country’s controversial 2016 election, can ‘be picked off one by one’.33
In that election, for example, an external team was brought in to audit the voters’ roll for discrepancies. But the audit happened much later than initially scheduled, giving rise to suspicions that it had been delayed to prevent inspection by the opposition and any legal challenge regarding its integrity. Although the process was supposed to take place at the Electoral Commission of Zambia’s headquarters, the official audit, and the laptop containing it, were reportedly moved under the direction of the Office of the President and taken to a safe house around the corner from the electoral commission and given to consultants working for the Office of the President. The opposition, the United Party for National Development (UPND), said: ‘The government’s objective was to access to the main Electoral Commission of Zambia server room and to insert favourable numbers during the counting process based on the information from the electoral roll.’
The UPND learnt about this scheme through an informant, who provided them with pictures from within the safe house. One option considered by the opposition was to raid the house and destroy the equipment. This, however, would have put the UPND source in considerable danger while providing the ‘auditors’ enough time to relocate to another safe house. The UPND team also thought about releasing the images to the international media, but realised the likelihood of a tepid response, while it too would have compromised their sources. Instead, the UPND identified the route of the underground cables from the safe house to the electoral commission building and, without anyone knowing, had the wires cut just as the counting process began. ‘This gave them no more time to move,’ recalls the UPND officer, ‘and eliminated incorrect numbers being put into the system. In a panic, one of the consultants [to the Office of the President] tried to enter the ECZ building in an attempt to fix the problem by entering numbers manually. He was spotted by one of the UPND members and wrestled to the ground before being arrested.’34 After the failure of this plan, the Patriotic Front apparently resorted to more basic, but no less effective tactics, including deploying armed thugs at various polling stations to hound out UPND agents.
What is emerging from Zambia’s and other African elections, including those in 2016 in Uganda and Gabon (where a claimed 99.9 per cent turnout in President Ali Bongo’s stronghold, the province of Haut-Ogooué, just tipped the balance in his favour by 5 000 votes) is a winning template for incumbents: close down the democratic space, run interference, misuse state resources, control the diet of information and, if necessary, don’t let the numbers stand in your way.
In the build-up to Zambia’s election day, no media were available to disseminate pro-opposition news, despite the fact major sums of money and international subsidies were paid to the state broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), to assist its programming. This created an environment where only pro-government broadcasting was heard. The International Press Institute found that hindering opposition media cast a ‘shadow’ over Zambia’s democracy.35
The ZNBC refused to air favourable opposition coverage, including Hichilema’s UPND political campaign documentary, until ordered to do so by the High Court days before the election.36 The documentary was aired once, well outside of prime time. Following the court ruling that it should be aired, the ZNBC claimed that there were no programming slots left. When The Post newspaper, MUVI Television and Komboni FM continued to cover the opposition, they had their offices raided and staff were attacked. They were forced to close. Limitations were placed on the opposition’s public rallies and restrictions were enforced to curtail the free movement of opposition leaders.37 These restrictions were a huge blow to the opposition given that so much of African political campaigning is about meeting the candidates and receiving memorabilia.
From the opposition’s perspective, police intimidation and violence were also far more apparent during the 2016 poll than any previous elections in Zambia’s history. Opposition supporters were killed, many others were beaten by hired thugs in full view of the police, and women were assaulted and stripped. The apparent purpose
