At book launch, don canvases good governance as solution to coups in Africa

A professor of political science, Sylvester Akhaine Odion, has said that military coups and political instability in Africa could only be prevented through good and responsive governance, charging the government and policymakers to always make people central to policies at all times.

Odion, who is a lecturer at the Department of Political Science in the Lagos State University (LASU), while speaking at a book launch in Lagos on Friday, blamed the long years of military incursion into politics in the continent for the several challenges bedevilling the continent. He stressed that the ruling class must focus more on people-oriented policies because in democracy citizens are central to policy unlike in military rule.

”Government should always make policies that will uplift the people. Without that, there will always be instability. We need good governance, we need to make people central to policies in Africa,” Odion said.

Reviewing the book titled ‘Military Intervention in African Politics’ authored by Jimoh Bamgbose, acting head of Department of Political Science, LASU, Odion said the recent coup in Myanmar was an indication of the resilience of military intervention in politics across the globe.

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The professor described the intervention of the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Mali after the August 18, 2020 coup against the government of Ibrahim Keita as operationalisation of intolerance of military intervention in political process and the desire to consolidate democratic rule on a global basis.

He added that the February 1, 2021 coup d’etat in Myanmar and the August 18, 2020 coup in Mali underline two major political currents.

“One is the resilience of military interventionism in politics. And the other is the operationalisation of intolerance of military intervention in the political process and the desire to consolidate democratic rule on a global basis. To state differently, there is the enduring desire to replace the barrel of the gun with the ballot paper,” Odion said.

”Equally, the events also dramatized the interplay of the social forces in society that usually engender military incursion into politics captured in the extant literature. Jimoh Adele Bamgbose’s ‘Military Intervention in African Politics’ articulates these issues in ways that underline their pervasiveness,” he said.

Olusegun Onilude, chairman of Badagry Local Government Area, who chaired the occasion, said that the book would be instrumental to the understanding of the dynamics of African politics and that it would help in sharpening the horizons of the political elite on socio-political issues.

”The book is useful to politicians too because we can only learn from history. It will sharpen our political ideas and how to improve the lives of our people,“ Onilude said.