Constitutionalism and Transfer of Power in Central and West Africa

Abstract

One of the phenomena that Africa and the world are currently witnessing is a chain of military takeovers of countries’ highest offices, the state, in Central and West Africa’s states. This phenomenon symbolizes the abuse of constitutionalism, which would have warranted a smooth transfer of power through competitive elections. Additionally, instead of this phenomenon being welcomed by citizens with condemnation and demonstrations of dissatisfaction and defence of constitutionalism, the contrary is being witnessed. The citizens are seen celebrating and cheering on the coup leaders for their bravery, which is presumed to be ending the years of suffering from economic hardships allegedly induced by the constitutionally elected leaders. Examining the status quo in selected Central and West African countries, this paper assesses how constitutionalism seems to be being upheld. The authors conducted an online literature search, which included the purposefully selected literature regarding constitutionalism and power transition in Africa in general and in Niger, Chad, and Gabon in particular. Textbooks, journal articles, media news, and conference proceedings were selected from online search engines such as Google, Google Scholar, Google Advanced Search, and ePDF. Text-based news from news broadcast organizations’ websites, including BBC, Africa news, and Voice of Africa, was also obtained. This paper establishes that the encroachment of constitutionalism in the understudied countries is the result of the presence of constitutions that cannot preside supreme, bad governance, disregard for the rule of law, and intractable military and anti-imperialism sentiments. Additionally, for constitutionalism to triumph, the constitution must be infallible and preside supreme, and any amendments should follow constitutional procedures, which include inclusion and by responsible institutions. The paper concludes that constitutionalism is a process that guides the relationship between the state and the people and therefore needs to be adhered to consistently. It warns that the phenomena witnessed in Central and West African countries might escalate to other parts of Africa as well, in which constitutionalism is disregarded.