Ademola Araoye

Ademola Araoye

What sentimentally has been described as contemptuous effusions of the French President, Francois Macron, that Sahel states forgot to thank France for its role in preserving their statehoods and his assertion that no Sahel nation would be a sovereign nation without France’s intervention are true. It is however intriguing that while the immediate instigation to this moment of uncomfortable declaration is the radical step of Alhassan Ouatarra to kick out the French troops from the country, Macron himself forgot the immediate source of his ire. The frustration of France is rooted in its unbridled greed and insensitivity to the plight of Africa. Flag independence from France implied that France controlled the levers of power and economy. This was achieved through direct appointments of heads of state or through sham democratic elections to favor France’s anointed candidates. Also, the military institutions of the francophone state were rendered operationally incapable. It was France’s responsibility to perpetuate and safeguard the stability of these imposed regimes. The quid pro quo was that the stooges remained committed to the protection of French interests. In the specific instance of Cote d’Ivoire, for decades, France’s 43rd BIMA troops of battalion strength was strategically quartered in Grand Bassam, which is 41 kilometers from Abidjan. The location of the BIMA was to facilitate ease of military intervention in the capital. The intelligence services were exclusively under the control of France. Cote d’Ivoire is the sixth country to demand the withdrawal of French troops from its territory in recent times. This situation across francophone Africa has been the source of the revolutionary impulses that have been manifest in the wave of radical interventions motorized by anti-French sentiments.

The uncharacteristic lack of linguistic discipline, diplomatic restraint and cultivated finesse appropriate for such delicate messages, for which France is a renowned master, in Macron’s emotional affirmation of the undeniable historical facts was ironically provoked by the bafflement of the smug French establishment and a national trauma instigated by a clearly visible end of an era in the history of France. Before now, there had been acrimonious finger pointing in Paris for the loss of French control of Africa.  France is confronted with the incremental unravelling of historic falsehoods and convenient axioms about its role in Africa that reached an unexpected crescendo last week. This defining moment of eventual awakening of a thinking, activist Africa had long been dreaded by France. It had therefore schemed assiduously over the centuries to prevent it. France’s over 130 overt and covert political and military interventions from 1960 to the mid-1990s were all designed to avoid this momentous transformation and consequential activism in Africa. French overt interventionist policy applied in countries such as Benin (Operation Verdier in 1991), Central African Republic (Operation Barracuda in 1979 and Operation Almandin in 1996), Chad, Zaire/ Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, and Libya. In numerous covert operations, many progressive African leaders were neutralized by France. The more prominent of these victims included Slyvanus Olympio of Togo and more recently direct implication France’s intelligence services in the assassination of Mohammed Gaddafi of Libya. These were undertaken to preserve French control of Africa. The latter crime, additionally, was also in connivance with the West, to derail to momentum toward the creation of a common African currency and the emergence of a continental African state.

Beyond preserving its hegemony in francophone West Africa, French policy was to destabilize large non-Francophone states of Nigeria and Angola, if it could not dismember them. Cote d’Ivoire was instrumental to the execution of the French permanent plot to dismember Nigeria. Houphouet Boigny kept infamous Jonas Savimbi, and The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) afloat at the behest of the United States for many years to destabilize Angola. Savimbi had a cozy relationship with Houphouet Boigny and a second home and a base of illegal financial transactions in Abidjan, Also, through deft political manoeuvers, France burrowed its way into the pivotal structures of the African Union that were often controlled by its proxies, such as lately Jean Ping of Gabon-another satellite state of France. Due to its seeming impregnability France earned the epithet of being the “first power in Africa”. Paradoxically, the tides have turned. In a space of three years, France’s control has vaporized and whittled down to virtually being a pariah of sorts in the continent. Meanwhile, France, now isolated by its old surrogates, is conveniently being courted and only welcome in such unlikely capitals as Abuja-the very state it had sought or still seeks to destroy. The dire challenges of the Nigerian domestic situation had forced the hands of the current residents of Aso Rock in the desperate search for friends. Potentially, this has unsavory consequences for Abuja as northern Nigeria has warned against any policy that aligns the country with France to destabilize. Neither is the sentiments in the South of Nigeria favorable to revitalized bilateral relations between the two countries. The dalliance, however rationalized, attracts contempt for Nigeria from the widening orbit of radical forces on the continent.

Meanwhile, France’s policy of strangulating Africa and any semblance of the expression of continental sovereign will had consequential implications in the stagnation of the development of true political and economic community. Most of the Francophone states in West and Central Africa, were governed by stooges of France. These states constituted an orbit of actors mobilized by the implacable commitment to the ascendance of French interests on the continent. This orbit first engaged in collective solidarity to ensure that the regime of each and every head of state was guaranteed protection under the umbrella of France. These lackeys ranged from Sese Seko Mobutu, the dinosaur, leader of Zaire, Omar Bongo in Gabon, through Gnasingbe Eyadema in Togo, Paul Biya in Cameroun, to Houphouet Boigny in Cote d’Ivoire in the early generation of French stooges.  As well, more recent leaders like Blaise Compaore, the assassin of prophetic Thomas Sankara, Ali Bongo, adopted son of Omar Bongo, in Libreville, and Faure Eyadema in Lome, Allasane Ouattara, among others. It is notable that these states constituted the main opposition to a progressive African coalition in Africa’s First World War. In that war, progressive states beginning with Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, Tanzania, Angola, and with South Africa in tow as the spear head at the diplomatic level, complementing troops of the Laurent Desire Kabila-led Alliance des forces Democratique pour la Liberation du Congo/Zaire (AFDL) were confronted by a residual group of forces loyal to Mobutu. These loyalists included some 3,000 soldiers of the Division Speciale Presidentielle (DSP), as well as several thousands of UNITA soldiers, along with former dislodged members of the Rwandan army and the Hutu Interharamwe militia that had earlier been routed from Kigali. The Mobutu forces, under guidance of France, received significant materiel from Morocco acting at the behest of France. Given the poor state of the armies of francophone countries in Central Africa, their threat to join in the fray on the side of Mobutu remained just that; mere threats. With threats of direct intervention of the United States should French troops deployed on ground join the fight, the fate of Mobutu was sealed.

So, the convenient facts alluded to by France under reference in relation to the ingratitude of Sahel states are disingenuous self-validating lies about its historically inglorious interaction with the continent. The half-truth and half-lie however represent a critical snippet of fact not only around Cote d’Ivoire and the states in the Sahel but also about the vast complexities of the reality of African statehood. It is in this context that experts have cautioned against too readily ascribing the supposedly universal characteristics of states to what are observed to be peripheral areas of modern global system where those who control them do not behave in the way that is normally ascribed to rulers of states. No African state is as reflexive of the complicated nuances of the post-colonial African state at the periphery of the global order of states better than Cote d’Ivoire- the pivot around which has revolved France’s impregnable exclusive orbit of political and economic hegemonic control in West Africa. Cote d’Ivoire is a classical neo-colonial state prepped and propped to operate as a neo-imperialist bastion and as a counter weight to permanently derail thrusts of sub regional and continental progressivism as represented by the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) and the propagation of collective African political and economic sensibilities. Under the rule of Boigny and Ouattara, Cote d’Ivoire played the role of neo-imperialist lackey excellently well. The internal contradictions of this role impacted the dynamic of its internal politics and directly culminated in its bloody civil war of the 1990s. Meanwhile, against the background of radical realignment of forces in the Sahelian region and more recently in Senegal through democratic channels, the events of last week in Abidjan revealed the final percolation of the validity of the logic of the evolution of radical forces in the sub-region to Cote d’Ivoire.

In the evolved perceptions of these transformative realities, Allasane Ouattara has come to the dreadful realization that the legitimacy of his rule had reached rock bottom domestically, given the controversial manner of his original ascent to power, the disintegration of the misguided rebel army in his youthful constituency (Forces Nouvelles) that was bankrolled by France, the continuing threat of a disenchanted Guillaume Soro, (leader of the Forces Nouvelles,) in France, the defection of the Baoules, Boigny’s ethnic group, from the roll call of his camp, and the unconstitutionality of his third term in office. Critically, in the immediate neighborhood, in the face of the radicalized climate, and specifically raving anti France sentiments in francophone West Africa, Ouattara has become a sitting duck for impatient impulses of revolutionary forces baying about in the country. However, on balance, Ouattara took a calculated risk understanding that continued French protection had become politically untenable.

With Cote d’Ivoire perceived as the last friend standing as a state and at the personal level of Allasane Ouattara with a French spouse and strong personal relations with ex French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the announcement by Allasane Ouattara’s Abidjan demanding France to close down its military garrisons in the country was a shocking development. Even though no threat to bilateral collaboration in other spheres is intended by the announcement, the development still marks a watershed of critical import at many strategic and analytical planes: at domestic, sub-regional, continental levels. The prevailing context of the turbulence of a global order in a state of dangerous flux adds an additional layer of strategic imperative in permutations of the potential trajectory of the evolution of Cote d’Ivoire, the Sahel and the West African sub-region. The control of Africa assured France a global stature and an economy heavily subsidized by its colonies. As Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio quipped barely six months ago, if France didn’t have its African colonies to exploit, it would be the 15th largest world economy. Instead it’s among the first, exactly because of the brutal exploitation of Africa. Italy also wanted France sanctioned for ‘creating poverty in Africa’. Rome essentially laid bare the unconscionable quid pro quo for France’s history of interventions to plunder the resources of the continent. Italy intoned that France did this by creating and bolstering its proxies as headmen of the political entities that are no more than desiccated silos of human misery.

It is interesting that the seed for the unravelling of France’s hegemony in Africa was sown in Cote d’Ivoire. That was barely two decades ago at a time when France desperately sought to realign its massively consequential policy failures following the death of Felix Houphouet Boigny, the unrepentant and indomitable head of headsmen beholden to France in Africa. The events in the Sahel in the last three years have demonstrated the impact of ideas such as the concept of “young patriotism” in francophone Africa. The idea was propounded by Ivorian youths as a philosophy of radical repudiation of the extant France-oriented national orders. That vision of the power of youth to change things motorized the frenetic and pacific anti-French control and the imposition of Ouattara as the trusted proxy of France to belatedly succeed Houphouet Boigny in Cote d’Ivoire. Laurent Gbagbo, the god-father of the mass of progressive Ivorian youth canvassing on his behalf, was vilified in French-inspired concocted narratives that bore no semblance of the realities in Cote d’Ivoire. Eventually, with France pulling the strands, Gbagbo was hauled to the International Criminal Court, where he was famously acquitted after almost a decade in incarceration. Discerning Africans protested the injustice, while Nigeria, in the hands of self-serving political opportunists, embraced and formulated policy based on the jaundiced narratives of the crisis peddled by the French media outlet, AFP. These narratives were effectively discredited by the International Criminal Court. As expected, Ouattara came back to haunt ECOWAS.

Accordingly, the radical evolution of political sensibilities across the francophone sphere in the sub region has underlined the fundamental deficiencies in the illogic that sustained the lives and careers of the likes of Felix Houphouet Boigny, who was in power for almost 34 years. The logic of Boigny’s paradigm of governing may be represented as anti-unity of black humanity. A strong united Africa was antithetical to his preferred alliances with neo-colonial powers. The vision of continental togetherness, in general, does not align with the personal agendas of the dominant naked emperors to possess the real estates and control of peoples of the unviable enclaves bestowed to them by their neo-colonial allies. An Africa wastefully wallowing and scavenging in the paralysis of its status quo is decisively in the interest of its hypocritical and insincere wounding leaders to which Boigny eminently belonged. An alliance with neo-colonial forces further assures the puny ambitions of appropriating a real estate and a people contained in the mere territorial enclaves and silos that are categorized as states. The wounding fathers cheat, steal and rob as well as kill in the impunity of assuring unimpeded conspicuous affluence. However, any exploration of this historic ignoble role of the naked emperors in consolidating the challenging existential conditions of the continent’s people is defined as a sacrilegious criminal infraction. All that has suddenly become obsolete in parts of francophone Africa. The turn-around in political sensibilities has undermined the legitimacy of the rule of forces that are bolstered by neo-colonial allies. Are there potential low hanging threatened dominoes in Togo and Benin in the face of massive propaganda denouncing relations of their regime with France from the revolutionary forces in the Sahel? As for ECOWAS, the waters have been further muddled up in the short term. However, should the new radical political orientations hold sway across francophone West Africa, a convergence of an uncompromising radical vision of emancipation as a fundamental treaties in the medium to long term may reinvigorate the Community. This would be so especially if Nigeria recognizes in a timely manner that the bear hug with France is an ahistoric step. The enhanced relations with France is generating an odious stench of suspicions and unholy compromise that may negatively affect the rapprochement that the current residue of the community seeks with radical forces in the sub-region. In this, Abuja, given the unspoken but discernible objectives about the real strategic reasons for embracing a known foe, is faced with tough choices. The ovation and exhilarating reception by the Ghanaian public of Captain Ibrahim Traore in Ghana at the inauguration of fellow Mossi, John Dramani Mahama, as 14^th President of Ghana last week, is the real gauge of the pulse and direction of the political sensibilities of the sub region.

The main question in relation to internal stability in Cote d’Ivoire is whether the gamble, both embarrassing and offensive to France, is strong enough to placate entrenched political opponents. Or, is the chasm created by the very evolution of the country too deep and wide to be bridged by a single step to pacify the braying radicals? Whatever the domestic implications, this decision has sent strong indicators of a process of profound structural reconfiguration of the sub region and the realignment of the strategic template of West Africa. Thus, and, by implication, it impacts the continent. In the nature of the reshuffling of the structure at the sub-systemic as with the systemic level, the process is invariably messy, with consequences that are often unpredictable. Much depends, of course, on postures adopted by all forces, from the domestic to the elite global forces, in their respective choices in the calculus of their stakes in the evolution and preferred modalities to project such strategic interests. In the least, elite powers including the United States of America, Turkey, Russia, and China, all having demonstrated hostility to France’s domination of Africa, are expected in the long term to stake claims to significant role in West Africa. Would there be a regression to the Cold War approach in the consolidation of western interests in one trusted actor in West Africa in order to effectively counteract Russia? The interaction among these forces and in the context of the changed environment of West Africa would constitute a definitive complex dynamic that would be critical to the evolution of the strategic template of the sub region in the long term. In the short term though, given the balance of forces in the sub region and the prevailing and still evolving structure of political affinities in Africa, some grave developments are very much on the cards.

*Professor Ademola Araoye is a retired official of the United Nations and former Director of Abuja Leadership Center, a TETFUND Center of Excellence in Public Governance and Leadership at the University of Abuja. He is author of Sources of Conflict in the Post- Colonial African State (AWP, 2012).