Abuja — Against a background of protests from around the world, the Nigerien president, Mamadou Tandja, was able to railroad Niger into a constitutional amendment, which guarantees his stay in power almost indefinitely.

Tandja's move to consolidate his daictatorship in Niger came as another illustration of a trend which African experts have noted in recent times: that democracy is beating a retreat in Africa. That conclusion was based on a number of troubling developments on the continent such as power grabs by incumbent presidents in attempts to change constitutional tenures as well as military coups in a number of African countries.

Jean Ping, the Chairman of the African Union Commission told the organisation's last summit in Libya that unconstitutional seizure of power was becoming a scourge of Africa. Ping added that the African Union was extremely concerned by the re-emergence of coups or attempted coups around the continent, citing those in Mauritania, Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar, as examples. It was equally a worry that the president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja has overturned the constitutional limit to his perpetual stay in power. Niger is in fact now becoming an oil-discovery based dictatorship.

Significantly, according to Kathryn Sturman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, the term elongation project by Niger's Mamadou Tandja was the 12th attempt by an African leader in the past decade to engineer a Third Term in office. This dubious list also includes the attempt by General Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria. While Jean Ping was expressing his worries, the AU Chairman, Libya's Muammar Gadaffi, Africa's longest reigning despot, has a different take on the issue. He was said to have flown to the AU headquarters to chastise members of the AU Peace and Security Council for denouncing the coup in Mauritania, saying the events there were none of the AU's business. "In the end it is an internal affair that is the concern of the Mauritanian people. It is a fait accompli", Gadaffi was reported to have stated.

Scholars from all backgrounds attending a conference in Addis Ababa, on the resurgence of coups in Africa also agreed that the AU's opposition to unconstitutional takeover of governments often lack in conviction. On the day of the meeting, the AU's Peace and Security Council passed a resolution which condemned the coup in Madagascar and the formation of a new government. That was a resolution that even African diplomats themselves agreed will not make much difference. Issaka Souare of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies argued that "the effectiveness of sanctions depends on the strength of the party that imposes them". He added that "if you look at the African Union, unfortunately, it does not have an effective power of stick and carrot, so the sanctions are very symbolic".

The same weakness is obvious in regional bodies like ECOWAS and that was exposed in the situation in Niger. When Nigeria's Foreign Minister, Ojo Maduekwe presumed to lecture Niger's Mamadou Tandja on the inadmissibility of his tenure elongation agenda, Tandja promptly reminded Maduekwe that Nigeria's president, Umaru Yar'adua was also a product of a tainted mandate. Tandja has similarly ignored the imposition of an arms embargo, knowing that none of the regional countries produced arms; and with Niger's new found oil wealth, he can get whatever arms he desired from the international market.

Against the backdrop of the disturbing trend, African leaders approved a new charter on democracy, elections and governance at a 2007 summit. It was welcomed as a reflection of the continent's rejection of unconstitutional change of government, and to take effect, 15 of the 53 AU member states were expected to ratify it. But nearly three years down the line, only Ethiopia and Mauritania have done so. Emma Birikokrang of the Kofi Anan International Centre in Accra, thinks that it is unrealistic to expect African leaders to take a strong stance against unconstitutional takeovers, when many of them also got to power through illegal means, such as coups or rigged elections. "It is difficult to condemn them, especially for African states to condemn fellow African states. Most of the heads of state have been in power for 20 to 30 years. And so when they go for AU heads of states meetings it is really difficult for them to condemn say Mugabe or Gadhafi or Conte at the time when he was alive, because they are very senior citizens who are supposed to be wise".

On a more sobering note, Delphine Lecontre of the Institute of Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University said the trend toward illegal change of government will likely continue when democratic aspirations of the citizens are not met. "These coups would multiply because for some of them it is the easiest way to make your voice heard. Because if they cannot be political opposition party or have access to elections by themselves, they will have access by military means. And there is other reason as well. In some African countries you have a long tradition in history of coups, so it belongs to the culture of the society that you can get access to position through coup as well".

It is also important to emphasize that democratic transition in Africa, from the 1990s, has seen the emergence and entrenchment of new power elites that have used power corruptly to enrich themselves. They have also used power to transfer publicly-owned assets into the hands of a few individuals and their cronies, while making it all but impossible to effect change in society through democratic means, because of massive riggings of elections. This is the scenario in a place like Nigeria, and that does not give democracy a good name in Nigeria. Attitudes such as we have enumerated herein have largely led to the narrowing of the democratic space in Africa.

What seems obvious is that citizens of African countries will find means to express themselves; and that space was what democracy is supposed to guarantee. If the practices of democracy continue to fail the people, then such spaces will constrict and non-democratic means will find a new lease of acceptance on the continent. Preachments about democracy and its imperatives are very well, but the citizens of African countries must be sure their aspirations can be driven within the ambits of democracy. If new oligarchies emerging on the basis of electoral fraud premised on the privatization of African wealth consolidate their grips on power as we are witnessing in countries such as Nigeria, then non-democratic means will become the manner to find expression for broad sections of African peoples in our different countries.