ECOWAS’ Deafening Silence on Togo’s Presidential Coup Exposes Its Hypocrisy
My Mission: Stultitia Delenda Est - Stupidity Must be Destroyed!
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) misrulers have long stood on their high horses from where they masquerade as staunch defenders of democracy - that Western-style shenanigans that kept them in power. Let’s forget that their citizens have not seen any tangible benefit from their four decades of experimentation with the imported political system. The reprobate pretenders like to tout their neo-colonial organization, a noble institution standing guard against tyranny in a region plagued by military coups and strongman rule.
But Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé's decision to effectively crown himself president-for-life has exposed ECOWAS for what it truly is - a club of hypocrites, a syndicate of self-serving elites who only bark when authoritarianism blows in directions that do not serve their interests, and the interests of their Masters in Paris, London, and Washington.
While ECOWAS shameless misleaders were quick to rattle sabers, impose harsh sanctions, and even threaten war against the military juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, their silence on Togo’s constitutional coup is deafening.
Where are the condemnations? Why is Tinubu not calling emergency summits? Where are the righteous proclamations about the "sanctity of democratic norms"? Where are those staunch defenders of democracy in the West and the internal compradors of Western imperialism masquerading as independent Think Tanks?
It should be clear to all that these reprobates misruling the colonial garrisons they call countries in ECOWAS do not care about democracy. The only thing they care about is capturing and maintaining power and serving the interests of their curators and sponsors, with the agenda to keep the Africans down and Western interests up. And as long as that power remains in the hands of those who play by the unspoken rules of the old boys’ network, ECOWAS will look the other way—even if it means watching an entire nation stripped of its right to choose its leaders.
It is as if these leaders went to sleep since Togo’s parliament, dominated by Faure Gnassingbé’s loyalists, rubber-stamped a new constitution that abolishes presidential term limits, effectively allowing Gnassingbé to rule indefinitely.
Of course, the imperialists who curated these so-called puppets did not see anything wrong.
If the military were criticized and sanctioned for abrogating the constitution, what is a democracy with a shredded constitution?
Togo is more of a monarchy masquerading as a republic. The Gnassingbé family had held Togo in an iron grip since 1967, when Faure’s father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, at the instigation of the Western powers, seized power in a military coup that killed Togo’s democratic leader, Sylvanus Olympio. Now, nearly six decades later, his son has ensured that the dynasty will continue, unbroken, unchallenged, and unrestrained by the people's will. No talking head came to wail on the BBC about the loss of freedom. We did not see the African experts on CNN frothing at the mouth orating about the death of democracy in Togo.
What happened in Togo was a coup. The only difference was that it was not the kind where soldiers storm the presidential palace at dawn but the kind where a leader dismantles democracy from within, using the very institutions meant to protect it.
Togo was not the first - it’s only the most recent glaring one, especially after the ruckus raised by Tinubu and co. over the AES.
If ECOWAS were not a fraudulent assembly of double-talking autocrats beholden to Western interests, were it to be consistent and care about credibility, it would have immediately suspended Togo, imposed sanctions, and demanded a return to constitutional order.
We can contrast this one-year silence with ECOWAS’ frenzied response to the military takeovers in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. When soldiers in those nations ousted their civilian presidents - all of whom were corrupt, incompetent, or clinging to power through electoral fraud - ECOWAS sprang into action like a pack of rabid dogs, with Tinubu and Akufo-Addo leading the pack.
Harsh economic blockades were imposed, strangling ordinary citizens already suffering from poverty. Led by Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu, these colonial puppets openly discussed military intervention to "restore democracy." And, of course, there were endless meetings and summits where speeches were made about the "unacceptability of unconstitutional government changes."
These well-curated modern-day plantation managers did not see the irony that Alhassan Ouatarra, the well-groomed French stooge serving an illegal third term, is also among them.
Yet, when Faure Gnassingbé - a man who inherited power from his dictator father and has since won multiple fraudulent elections - engineers a constitutional coup, ECOWAS is suddenly struck dumb.
Because Gnassingbé is one of them, he is part of the elite club of West African leaders who understand the rules: you can rig elections, jail opponents, and loot your country’s treasury, but as long as you maintain the façade of civilian rule, ECOWAS will not touch you. What is becoming quite obvious now is that if your dictatorship allies itself with Western powers (like Togo, a long-time French ally), ECOWAS will never dare to intervene.
ECOWAS operates under an unspoken but ruthlessly enforced hierarchy of legitimacy:
We do what we do to warn these stooges in power in West Africa that the citizens of West Africa are not fools. They see the hypocrisy. They see how ECOWAS leaders posture as democrats while eroding democracy at home. They see how sanctions are weaponized against poor nations while wealthy autocrats like Gnassingbé get a free pass. They do not see the benefits promised by the ECOWAS charter.
History has shown that institutions built on lies cannot last. As evidenced by the growing support for the AES, especially Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso, the people of West Africa are increasingly disillusioned with ECOWAS. If this hypocrisy continues, the organization risks becoming irrelevant or collapsing under its contradictions.
The military governments in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger formed their alliance, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), explicitly rejecting ECOWAS’ authority precisely because of the hypocrisy, the contradictions, and the neocolonial mentality of the ECOWAS leaders; more nations may follow. Why should they remain in an organization that punishes some coups while blessing others?
To the misrulers of ECOWAS, we say: Your silence on Togo is a disgrace. Your selective outrage is a betrayal. If you continue down this path - defending dictators while attacking soldiers who overthrow them—you will lose whatever shred of credibility you have left. West Africans are waking up. No, we do not love military rule, but we are tired of the hypocrisy, the lack of vision, and the abject genuflecting of colonial powers. Unless you change course, the people will abandon you, just as you have abandoned them.
©️ Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀
(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, Essayist, Polemicist, Satirist, Social Commentator, Chronicler of collapsing empires.)
My Mission: Stultitia Delenda Est - Stupidity Must be Destroyed!
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