₦airaland Forum

The crooked president of Cote d'Ivoire ( Ivory Coast ) is violating the constitution of his country to run for a 4th presidential term .
His 3rd unconstitutional term cost the lives of thousands of people in 2020.

Ouattara’s Dangerous Gambit
The Ivorian president is trifling with his country’s long-term political stability.
Post by Ebenezer Obadare, Author


In 2019, as speculation grew that he was quietly orchestrating a run for a legally dubious third term of office at the expiration of his tenure the following year, pressure mounted on Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara to show his hand.

When the president eventually spoke, his remarks did little to put his compatriots and international observers at ease. On the one hand, Mr. Ouattara spoke of his conviction “that there is a need for generational change in Africa,” adding: “Seventy-five percent of Africans are under 35 years of age.

The French president is 40; my eldest son is 52. It is clear to me that the path is towards a transfer to a new generation.” Yet, lest anyone should surmise that he was going to take his own counsel and bow out gracefully, the president quickly added: “I’m not telling you that I am leaving, be careful.” (He would go on to secure a bitterly contested third term after Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, widely seen as his preferred successor, died unexpectedly in July 2020.)


Mr. Ouattara, eighty-three this year, is back waffling. Last week, at an official event in Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital, he teased the idea of running for a seemingly improbable fourth presidential term (“I’m in good health and eager to serve my country”) so far as his party, the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), was ready to back his candidacy. However, in typical Ouattara-ese, he seemed to hedge his bets when he added: “As of today, I have not yet made a decision.”


Last October, top party officials anointed Mr. Ouattara their “natural candidate” and expressed a “desire to do everything possible” to ensure his victory in next October’s presidential election.

While the opposition will have its say (its principled boycott of the 2020 presidential election may have been one reason the president was able to rack up 94 percent of the vote), it appears that the West African country of 32 million people is set for a rerun of an all too familiar political melodrama in which the incumbent feigns a lack of interest in staying in power but is seemingly pressured by party bigwigs and assorted lackeys to act against his personal interest, terminating in a denouement in which the “father of the nation” reluctantly accepts to carry on for the good of the country.

In the meantime, the political opposition is portrayed as “enemies of state,” and its (the state’s) resources are promptly mobilized against it and anyone who dares cry foul.

To say that President Ouattara’s shillyshallying is the last thing that Côte d’Ivoire needs is an understatement. In the first place, the fact that previous electoral contests have been dogged by violence means that the country has little margin for error and can nary afford a potentially combustible situation in which the opposition is pushed to the wall and feels the need to do everything to stand up to what it legitimately sees as an assault on the country’s constitution.

Three thousand people were needlessly killed and another five hundred thousand displaced after then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat in the November 2010 presidential poll. It is regrettable that Mr. Ouattara, at the time the clear winner that the incumbent was reluctant to hand over to, has learnt very little from the tragic episode.

Furthermore, President Ouattara either appears not to have read the room as far as the ascendant mood across the region is concerned, or he seems to have quickly forgotten what happened in Senegal where former President Macky Sall’s attempt to continue in power for an illegal third term of office spectacularly blew up in his face. Either way, he seems not to mind plunging his country into an avoidable political crisis, the ripples of which will in all probability be felt beyond its borders.

There is no other name for what President Ouattara is doing than reckless, and it is absolutely important that he be stopped in his tracks. The regional political and economic body, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has a role to play here. Having acted admirably in standing up to the martial trinity of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, it needs to stay the course by speaking clearly in condemnation of President Ouattara’s plans, for in essence, what the soldiers have done with guns is the same thing Mr. Ouattara is aiming to accomplish through the ballot. ECOWAS will look foolish and be susceptible to accusations of double standard if it does not take a stand against Mr. Ouattara.

Washington too can weigh in. It seems plausible that President Ouattara is figuring that, with the United States desperate for new alliances across the region, and with the incoming Trump administration expected to be distracted at worst and transactional at best, there is hardly a better time to get away with a political heist of this magnitude. Washington should send a clear message that the United States will not stand with an ally who is willing to sacrifice the well-being of his people and the stability of his country on the altar of political ambition.

Mr. Ouattara says he is “eager to continue serving” his country. Very well. There is no law that says he can only do this as president. The moral and reasonable thing to do is to leave office at the expiration of his current term and let the political process take its course. The high ground beckons. President Ouattara should take it.
SOURCE: https://www.cfr.org/blog/ouattaras-dangerous-gambit

The support from France makes all this rubbish possible. France has never been of help in the developmental but exploitative process of these countries.

Have you heard of the same thing happening in the English-speaking countries?

Gradually, they are freeing themselves. But Côte d'Ivoire is the most developed of the French West African countries.

Remember, at the point of bringing up the Eco currency, Mr Quattra invited Mr Macron, who suddenly jumped in.

Thank God Nigerians asked them to go ahead without her, and that was what saved the ECOWAS countries.

panafrican:
The crooked president of Cote d'Ivoire ( Ivory Coast ) is violating the constitution of his country to run for a 4th presidential term .
His 3rd unconstitutional term cost the lives of thousands of people in 2020.

Stop spreading fake news. Who taught you that thousands died in Ivory coast in 2020 due to political violence? Again, I don't support the guy running for the 4th time but it's actually not unconstitutional. He was able to make changes to the ivorian constitution.
Lastly, under his rule, the ivorian economy has greatly improved. We can't say the same for the APC bros.

tctrills:
Stop spreading fake news. Who taught you that thousands died in Ivory coast in 2020 due to political violence? Again, I don't support the guy running for the 4th time but it's actually not unconstitutional. He was able to make changes to the ivorian constitution.
Lastly, under his rule, the ivorian economy has greatly improved. We can't say the same for the APC bros.

Yes thousands died in 2020 and it did not stop there,. Your IMF /France' / World bank double -digit growth is nothing but
a smoke for the suicide rate reached a level than never before. Why don't you talk about it?
Did you know how many cities were affected by the killing spree led by Ouattara's hooded militias in 2020 ?
In Yamoussoukro ( the political capital city ) and Divo ( a big city in westrern Cote d'Ivoire ) you could count more than 200 dead.
Now add eastern part where Ouattara's people played football live on Facebook with the severed head of a some of the many opponents they killed.
Folks like you and RFI ( Radio France Internationale ) are the very same who support that the war from 2002 through 2011,
cost 3000 lives when we know that in the western parts of the country, more than 35000 people died.
In one day Ouattara 's people butchered almost 1000 Christians and secular people, in 2011. The Un troops stood by and did NOTHING !
They even encouraged it.

panafrican:
Yes thousands died in 2020 and it did not stop there,. Your IMF /France' / World bank double -digit growth is nothing but
a smoke for the suicide rate reached a level than never before. Why don't you talk about it?
Did you know how many cities were affected by the killing spree led by Ouattara's hooded militias in 2020 ?
In Yamoussoukro ( the political capital city ) and Divo ( a big city in westrern Cote d'Ivoire ) you could count more than 200 dead.
Now add eastern part where Ouattara's people played football live on Facebook with the severed head of a some of the many opponents they killed.
Folks like you and RFI ( Radio France Internationale ) are the very same who support that the war from 2002 through 2011,
cost 3000 lives when we know that in the western parts of the country, more than 35000 people died.
In one day Ouattara 's people butchered almost 1000 Christians and secular people, in 2011. The Un troops stood by and did NOTHING !
They even encouraged it.

Please post links to the source of your data.

tctrills:
Please post links to the source of your data.

You said thousands did not die. why don't you provide us with
your "real data.".

panafrican:
You said thousands did not die. why don't you provide us with
your "real data.".

Sir are you confused? If you are, let me explain how it works. You will not find and written account or link that says Thousands of people were not shot in Lagos yesterday. It will not be wise to report when there was no news
If thousands of people were not killed in Ivory Coast, the evidence is that it was not reported.
No news agency goes about reporting when nothing happened.
But if thousands were killed as you claim, every news room will report it. There will be posts on Facebook, X, and TikTok. You will find videos on YouTube.
So stop spreading fake news that you can't defend.
I have provided you with an opportunity to defend your position since yesterday but it seems you have nothing so let me advise that you calm down with the fake news. Please, it's not useful and it helps no one.