- Former External Affairs Minister Bolaji Akinyemi asserts that coups are often driven by poor governance and even “civilian coups” related to term manipulation
- Akinyemi highlights corruption and economic challenges in African countries as contributing factors to instability
Bolaji Akinyemi, Nigeria’s former External Affairs Minister and Professor of Political Science, has stated that coups are motivated by poor governance.
Prof Bolaji Akinyemi stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today in the context of Niger Republic’s ongoing military takeover.
He said;
Coups have been motivated by bad governance. Not only bad governance, there is something that has crept into the language of political scientists, which is called civilian coups.
This is when you have the sitting president who manipulates the constitution for term elongation. Some even scrapped the concept of term limitation.
The Central African Republic has done so, having completed the regulation two terms he now introduced a new constitutional amendment having seven years starting with him.
He removed members of the supreme court and assembled new judges and called on his people to have a referendum. His people adopted the referendum. This is a civilian coup, which deserves to be condemned.
President of Senegal toyed with the idea of term elongation until when people poured into streets and got killed, property destroyed. He then backed. Even when they keep within the term, the corruption is so endemic that politicians get pats, while the people lose weight. The devastating state of our economies in Africa, we don’t deserve that because of our resources.
No intention to hike fuel price – NNPCL
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has cleared the air as regards the widespread concern of a possible hike in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol.
In a post by the company, posted around 11:48 pm on Monday on its official X (formerly Twitter) handle, the national oil firm and major importer of petrol into Nigeria, said it had no intention to increase the pump price of petrol.
Dear esteemed customers, we at NNPCL Retail value your patronage, and we do not have the intention to increase our PMS pump prices as widely speculated.
Please buy the best quality products at the most affordable prices at our NNPCL Retail stations nationwide, the company stated.