CORRUPTION AND ERUPTION OF END-BAD-GOVERNANCE PROTESTS

Corruption And Eruption of End-Bad-Governance Protests: The Need for African Leaders to Listen to the Voice of Reason

BY UZOMA OGOKE

There’s an ongoing wave of revolution across the African continent, and the earlier African leaders come together, under different auspices, including the apex body, the African Union (AU) and take a decision to make a 360 degrees turn around in the way they have been administering the affairs of member countries, the better it will be for the continent.

Nigerians  planned a nationwide  protest over hunger and economic hardship tagged #End-Bad-Governance protest , but before they could commence, reports emerged that Ghanians already took to the streets to also protest over the same reason.

Nigerians started their protests from Thursday, August 1, 2024. The protest  is scheduled to last for ten days.

The truth is that the African continent needs a full blown revolution, to change the self serving type of leadership that has kept the continent perpetually a lame duck, making hell on earth for the inhabitants.

Successive leaders of the continent, especially in Nigeria have bitten enough, they have connived among themselves to keep Africans perpetually under subjugation, with their inhuman and dehumanizing style of leadership and treatment of the masses.

For too long, African leaders have taken the people for a ride, but it has got to a point where they must take the hard decision of abandoning their old ways that confer primitive advantage of wealth and opulence on them at the detriment of the people.

The wave of revolution which is gradually gathering momentum started from the North African countries. 

The series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa that commenced in 2010 became known as the “Arab Spring”, and sometimes as the “Arab Spring and Winter”, “Arab Awakening”, or “Arab Uprisings”, even though not all the participants in the protests were Arab.

In fact, it did not take place in North African countries alone, it spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation.

 The protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012).

Also major uprisings and social violence occurred including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

The next was the series of Coup-de-Etat which took place across some African countries and mostly in West Africa, which also led to the depose of the so called democratically elected rulers accused of the same malaise of corruption, as the coupists claimed that the corruption-ravaged governments had made a mess of the economy of the countries concerned, resulting in untold hardship, poverty , hunger and starvation among the populace.

The five countries which witnessed seven Coups from 2020 were: Mali which saw two in a space of nine months (August 18 2020 and May 24, 2021); Guinea on September 5 2021; Sudan on October 25, 2021; and Burkina Faso which witnessed two in a space of eight months ( January 24, 2022 and September 30 of same year) as well as Niger Republic on July 26, 2023.

Currently another wave of revolution has started in the form of protests against high level economic hardship, hunger and starvation ravaging these African countries. It is going on with a hashtag; #End-Bad-Governance# This pattern started from Kenya, Nigeria followed in planning to start from 1st of August, but before Nigeria could start as scheduled, Ghanaians reportedly started unannounced, a day earlier before Nigeria

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