Leaders who flout term limits have no place in today’s Africa

A dangerous trend is cropping up — that of some African leaders shunning term limits and using unorthodox means to tighten their grip on power.

The situation obtaining in Ivory Coast and Guinea and the recent military takeover in Mali should worry every African who cares about the democratic potency of the continent. Many African nations are rich but fraying at the edges due to misrule and bad economic policies. Add this to the tendency by presidents to tinker with law for self-aggrandizement and you have a continent in crisis.