Why rebels succeed in toppling presidents

By PETER WANYONYI

African militaries — okay, armies, since African navies and air forces are just jokes — are a pampered lot. They live in colonial-era barracks mansions, do little most of the time, don’t train, and generally just proceed to slowly vegetate into a blissful, blessed background.

But who can blame them? In virtually all African countries, military budgets are a State secret. No one knows how much they spend on what, and who gets what share of the purchase price. Even worse, the militaries themselves are popular repositories for handing out jobs and contracts to the favoured few.

Every self-respecting African president ensures that the senior-most positions and the officer classes of his country’s military go to his tribesmen. This is supposedly to ensure that any coup plots can be beaten back easily and with utmost ferocity.

Shoot rebels

And they are always wrong because officers and generals don’t carry guns to shoot rebels and coup plotters. It is ordinary soldiers who do. But in the tribalised cabals that are Africa’s militaries, the most menial jobs — those of actually shooting enemies — are all that anyone else gets, with the most lucrative upper management vibarua reserved for people from the president’s village.

This explains why, in Africa — and without exception — rebel movements, always succeed in toppling the president and his regime. Up in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi had turned Libya’s military into a tribal job bank. Training was neglected and merit was non-existent. Money meant for weapons got squandered, and the military — actually little more than a tribal militia — jealously guarded information from within its ranks against leaking. But while they were focused on the outside world, dissatisfaction among the lower ranks resulted in dissent, and as soon as the rebel movement gathered strength, the military absconded and fled. The rebels caught up with Gaddafi and shot him in the head.

It wasn’t much different with Mobutu Sese Seko, who misruled Zaire — the Democratic Republic of Congo — for 32 long years. He had come to power via a coup, and he set about ensuring no one would ever topple him. Military recruitment was reserved for his tribesmen. Military contracts went to his cronies, and they never delivered the equipment they should have bought, preferring instead to buy villas in the south of France. When Laurent Kabila’s Rwanda-backed Tanzanian-bred rebels showed up in Zaire in 1997, Mobutu’s army deserted in droves, Kinshasa fell, and the old dictator fled into exile — and a long overdue death — in Morocco.

Perhaps this is why Uganda is worrying. President Museveni is taking delivery of a whole bunch of Russian jets, but there is dissatisfaction in his military. Senior officers are quarrelling openly, there is dissent over the president’s plans to hand over power to his son, and corruption has hollowed out the armed forces and their resolve.

Even foreigners are taking note. For instance, when Museveni went to Europe to attend the Somalia conference, he was jeered in the Western press, with many loudly wondering when he will be shown the door by his own military.