Will French troops now flush out the impostor in Abidjan?

FOLLOWING the ouster of Laurent Gbagbo after a military onslaught on the presidential palace in Abidjan by French and rebel troops in April 2011, I wrote a back-page piece for the Nigerian Tribune deploring the incident. I could not stomach the criminal invasion of Gbagbo’s bedroom by French/UN troops as their helicopters pounded the palace. A soldier gloated at the time: “We attacked and forced in a part of the bunker. He [Mr Gbagbo] was there with his wife and his son. He wasn’t hurt but he was tired and his cheek was swollen from where a soldier had slapped him.” I did not think that Gbagbo was a saint, but the optics of a foreign power bombing out an African president just didn’t sit well with me. At the time, condemnation of Gbagbo as a dictator and everything negative was high, and the UN and its allies waxed lyrical about how they were saving democracy in Cote d’Ivoire. The French, a principal force for evil in Africa, led the chorus of democracy salvation even though French soldiers had once bombed the entire Ivorian Air Force. Now, 14 years later, it turns out that I was right in my dissent after all. The impostor that the saviours of democracy installed with brute force has played Kagame, changing the constitution to suit his lust for power and virtually subordinating democracy to his demonic ambition.

In “Paul Kagame: Face of a fraud”, published on this page on September 30, 2023, I wrote: “In order to maintain his vice grip on Rwanda, Kagame routinely jails critics and opposition candidates… I don’t know whether to laugh or cry: the revised constitution that emanated from the 2015 referendum reduced presidential terms to five years, renewable only once, after a transitional seven-year term starting in 2017, but then it granted Kagame a seven-year third term run, as well as two five-year terms, in 2024 and 2029, meaning that Kagame will rule until 2034. In other words, the constitution is all about King Kagame.” Alassane Ouattara, the fraudster on whose behalf French tanks flushed Gbagbo out from a bunker, has plunged Cote d’Ivoire into crisis with his quest for a fourth term—the con man who once promised not to run for a third term now wants to play Paul Biya on the longsuffering Ivorians, but there are no French tanks anywhere near Abidjan. This confirms what we have all known all along, namely that the French interest in “democracy” in Côte d’Ivoire is all about control and theft of its resources.

Pray, who cursed Africa? People go to Kigali, a land brutally suppressed by a bloodthirsty murderer who has pocketed a whole country, to learn about democracy! To think that this is the same Africa that produced Sankara, Awolowo,  Mandela and Lumumba is beyond heartbreaking.

My people say that the crayfish thief does not stop at the first picking (Ajede je ki i je eyokan k’o si’wo). That explains the tactics of Ouattara, the man who in the Ebenezer Obey song of songs chanced upon a lost item but wants to die with it, not even asking himself the key question: What is the person who lost it to do? { Eni ri nnkan re to fe ku pelu e, owo eni to ti sonu nko?). For years, France has been reorganizing its military strategy in Africa, moving from direct control to a “less entrenched, less exposed model” in order to maintain French influence while reducing visibility and vulnerability. As the Indian analyst Pavan Kulkarni has pointed out, when Ouattara announced the withdrawal of French forces in his New Year address, he did not terminate the 1961 military agreements with France. The 43rd BIMA (Marine Infantry Battalion) will be handed over to the Ivorian Armed Forces, but France may retain smaller bases and training schools. Scam!

Cote d’Ivoire is reeling under heavy protest because the France and UN-backed fraudster wants to die in power, even with a resurgent opposition hot on his trail. Gbagbo is challenging Ouattara in the 2025 presidential election, and popular movements against French neo-colonialism are growing across the country. It is no coincidence that the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), comprising Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, has accused France of supporting terror operations aimed at destabilizing its governments.

But of course the die-in-power affliction isn’t all down to France. Check out Uganda’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ali Moses, the 86-year-old who can’t even walk on his own, yet won’t go home. Well, Ali, only six years older than Yoweri Museveni, is a mere learner where the likes of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea), Denis Sassou Nguesso (Republic of Congo), Isaias Afwerki (Eritrea) and of course Biya and Museveni are concerned. These fraudsters are keeping themselves perpetually in power by Playing Kagame: manipulating the constitution and rigging elections. Look at the dodderer Biya, who at 92 wants to extend his rule until he’s nearly 100 years old.

Cameroon is mired in massive unemployment and persistent insecurity, separatist conflict (Remember the Amba Boys that we discussed in “Why separatists cannot be trusted with power’?) and cross-Border threats, but Ouattara’s uncle  simply does not care. Someone please tell Maurice Kamto, Joshua Osih, Akere Muna and Cabral Libii and other opposition figures that Biya isn’t ever going to relinquish power.

Let’s return to Cote d’Ivoire, where Ouattara is bent on rigging himself into office perpetually. Will France, led by a drag-along, apprentice president messing around with his mother’s age mate, now tell the impostor in Abidjan to get out? Or is the criminal exploiter of Niger Republic no longer interested in saving democracy in Ivory Coast? Is Macron too busy eating bacon and dancing Makossa to care? France’s puppet is seeking a fourth term in office. He has suspended the country’s constitution, and thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Abidjan and other cities, chanting, “No true democracy without true justice”. He has excluded Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam from the upcoming presidential election, and these ‘rebels’ have formed a joint campaign to challenge him. Ouattara has defended his decision to run, citing the country’s ongoing security, economic, and monetary challenges that require his experienced leadership! Yeepa!! Is he the only knowledgeable individual in Ivory Coast? Has he never heard what former Ondo State governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, once told a leader who wanted to play his kind of game, namely that “No one can finish government work”? Assuming that he dies in power at a ripe old age, would all the problems facing Ivory Coast have been solved by then?

   Well, the 2011 saviours of democracy in Cote d’Ivoire have suddenly gone dumb. I hope that Ouattara will not have occasion to one day call on the same people he has oppressed for years to “make noise” and save him, like a routed rogue requested in Gabon two years ago.

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