There has been a major amendment on the Constitution of the Republic of Guinea, which has to do with the clause that stated that a President is only entitled to two consecutive terms in office.

But the government of President Lansana Conte has sought the mandate of the electorate, through a referendum, to allow President Conte to contest for the presidency for the third time.

Many reasons were used to canvas the electorate to vote in favour of the amendment, the major ones being that the economy of the country has improved tremendously under President Conte and the fierce and effective manner in which he handled the recent rebel attack on that country.

However, one would not be far from speaking the truth to say that the main reason behind President Conte's action is the desire to hang on to power.

Compensating a President with another term in office after the expiration of his two terms for a job well done can be tantamount to creating life presidency again in Africa. It should be recalled that several African leaders compensated themselves with life presidency because they brought independence to their countries. Kwame Nkruma of Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Kamusu Banda of Malawi and Houphouet-Boigny of Cote D' Ivoire made themselves life president's arrogating to themselves the unchallengeable rights to rule as long as they lived. In fact Kwame Knruma was going to be deified in Ghana had he not been over-thrown in 1966.

Bringing independence, economic prosperity and winning a war for a country does not give one the right to monopolize state power.

The British did not compensate Winston Churchill with an election victory that followed the Second World War, although he won the war for them.

The Americans experienced the dangers of according the monopoly of knowledge of ruling the land at crises periods under President Franklyn D.

Roosevelt. After allowing four consecutive terms for him, they realised such is a breeding ground for dictators and therefore decided to limit a president's chances to rule to only two consecutive terms no matter how popular that president might be.

Maybe the decision of the Zambians to prevent President Chilluba from amending the Constitution to allow him to stand for a third term was a step in the right direction that the Guineans should have followed: although the Zambian leader had become unpopular before the referendum in his country, while Lansana Conte, conducted his at the height of his popularity.

Except by a miracle, giving a president a third chance to contest for the presidency is an assurance that he is going to retain the highest seat in the land.

Since independence African leaders have sought several means of holding on to power. Some, as has been mentioned earlier, made themselves life presidents, others rigged elections in their favour to stay in power.

There were also those African leaders who simply refused to accept election results. In 1967, Albert Margai refused to accept that Siaka Stevens' APC had defeated his (Margai's) SLPP in the general elections of that year.

Instead of handing over power to Siaka Steven's, Margai incited the military to intervene while Stevens was being sworn in as Prime Minister.

In any case, Margai did not succeed in his ambition to retain power and had to go on self- exile in England.

A similar event took place in Lesotho in 1970 when the Prime Minister Chief Lebua Jonathan refused to hand over power to Ntsu Mokhehle's Basutoland National Party (BNP) which won the general elections that year. Chief Jonathan did not only refuse to step down, he went ahead to declare a state of emergency and stopped holding elections again.

Of course a one party system was introduced throughout Africa before the democratic wind of change started blowing in the '90's.

In addition to the democratically elected leaders that turned themselves into one party dictators were the military regimes that emerged in Africa not long after independence.

The military found reason to seize power in the autocratic and corrupt rules of the dictatorships that ruled Africa after independence.

In many cases, people agreed with the military for their intervention.

Africa leaders did not tolerate any form of criticism or competition for power. They forced the oppositions to go underground as their lives and freedoms were jeopardised if they surfaced. Unlawful detentions, disappearances without trait, and death became rampant. Many opposition members died in jail as the result of such inhuman policies.

For example Kwame Nkruma jailed his arch- rival the nationalist Dr. J. B.

Danguah where he died. In Sierra Leone in the 1970's, Siaka Stevens executed opposition members including people like Dr. Mohamed Sorie Fornah, Ibrahim Bash-Taqi, and others. Obafemi Awolowo and several others were jailed in Nigeria for treasonable felonies.

This was how many African leaders laid the foundation for the military to involve in politics. In fact there were times when people longed for a military rule in Sierra Leone as a result of the APC misrule. We even drew examples from our neighbours Guinea under General Lansana Conte and Liberia under CIC Samuel Kayon Doe. No wonder the dream of a change when Siaka Stevens handed over power to head of the military.

But a major difference between the one party civilian dictators and the military leaders was that the civilian dictators accepted 'enough when it was enough' even if reluctantly when the democratic wind of change started blowing. In Tazannia, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere honourably stepped down from office in the late 1980's. So also did Leopold Senghor of Senegal who stepped down after a 20- year rule.

Presidents Kamusu Banda and Kenneth Kaunda of Malawi and Zambia respectively did not only accept a change to multi party systems, they actually accepted defeat at presidential elections.

With the military, the story has always been different. They would adopt multi-party constitutions and make provisions for them to resign from the military and contest elections as civilians.

With full military backings, such elections are rigged and the military dictators are transformed into "democratically elected" civilian leaders.

President Eyadema of Togo, Yayah Jammeh of the Gambia and Lansana Conte of Guinea, Jerry Rawllings Ghana and the Late Samuel Doe of Liberia are examples of such military leaders turned civilian leaders in West Africa.

Of course General Robert Gui did not succeed to become one in Cote D' Ivoire notwithstanding the fact that President Conte started as a military ruler in 1984 following succession problems after Sekou Toure's death, and has enjoyed two consecutive five year terms as "democratically elected" civilian leader. He has gone a step further to call for an amendment on the Presidency.

Like Sekou Toure before him, President Conte wants to become life President of Guinea.

Since democracy is the order of the day, and with less political awareness in Guinean civilians, he is using amendments to prolong his stay in power thereby becoming a budding life president another bad trend in African politics.