La chronique MANSSAH : quel modèle de gouvernance pour l’Afrique ?

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Faut il supprimer la fonction de Président de la République ? Qui pour gérer l’exécutif ? Quel rôle pour les Rois et chefs traditionnels ? Comment en finir avec le cycle des élections contestées ? MANSSAH vous propose une base de réflexion pour modifier fondamentalement nos institutions et notre module de gouvernance.

Une chronique MANSSAH d’Alain Foka
Réalisation : Sébastien Faye

Captation : Sébastien Faye – Thomas Olland – Victor Gnonhoussou
Montage et animations : Sébastien Faye – Ayina Thiam

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What are the Presidents of the Republic used for in our African countries? We have no means of control over the leaders who are there, but real monarchs who rule without real control, without any real counter-power. Are they the main responsible for our failure? Shouldn’t we do without this function

Who concentrates all the powers? What is the point of elections organized at great expense when, two and a half times out of three the winner is known in advance, it is the one who organizes who wins. What are these elections for when they are almost always held

In protest, too often in violence and division? The first thing is to stop this endless voting cycle which produces nothing good. We have been holding elections to elect the same people for years. This means that in most cases when we hold elections in Africa,

We know the winner well in advance and we continue to spend huge amounts of money to produce the same thing. What are the criteria to choose a minister to designate the members of the government in our countries? A government which would be composed of local elected officials,

Therefore it is necessary to have local roots to be as close as possible to the populations. And besides that, certain positions dedicated to technocrats due to their technical specificities. What should be the place of the army in our States? We must now consider the army as an actor in its own right.

Whether we like it or not, since when things don’t go well, she burst onto the political scene. Now, how to supervise, or in any case, redefine its role? That’s the question. The democratic electoral system, adopted with forceps the day after the Africa-France conference from La Baule

In 1990, is it really suitable for our sub-Saharan countries? Let us have the courage to tackle head-on, without taboo, the questions that we have been asking ourselves in silence for several years, in our privacy, without having the guts to debate it in public,

Simply because we have made our imported models as a dogma, almost as a religion. You have to look good by supporting them, it looks nice. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror, ask ourselves the real questions and really get rid of this intellectual laziness

To find suitable solutions to our own problems. At MANSSAH, our ambition is to invite everyone, all Africans, without exception, to rethink Africa, methodically, without passion and without hatred, without invective and without fanaticism, to imagine, to develop their own model. It is an emergency in view of

The situation of our States, in view of the acute crises our countries are going through. This is not an option. Obviously we are at a geopolitical moment where we are reshuffling the cards, It’s an extraordinary shooting window. We have to seize it. We want here to

Invite you to think about solutions with us. So there comes a time when we have to stop and ask ourselves the real questions, to wonder about the course that Africa today had to take, and question itself if indeed, since independence, the route we took is the right one.

The democratic system or regime that we have in our French-speaking countries, I do not believe it. To cure the evil we must not just judge the consequences. It is necessary to determine its origin, the root causes. It is from there that we can make proposals

To rethink and provide a model that suits our continent. IN MANSSAH, in the governance and institutions committee, we chose to tackle in this first part of our work, to the question of the governance model and institutions. It is obvious that this help, traditional, already ancient, will be more lukewarm in the face

Regimes that behave in an authoritarian manner without accepting an evolution towards democracy. Thanks to this La Baule conference which put an end to the system of a single party and the great helmsmen installed after independence, we entered at the beginning of the 1990s in a new era, that of democracy,

On which we pinned all our hopes as it had sold so well. It was to bring peace, freedom, growth, equality. 34 years later, it may have come time to look back, especially in view of the turbulence that our continent is going through from side to side.

30 years doesn’t seem like much, but at the same time, it’s a lot. Because if you look back over the last 30 years, it is a real disaster and you will see that in several sectors, these countries which have adopted this model without thinking are instead in the process of regressing.

Countless human lives have been lost. The development plan could never be implemented. We find ourselves in a position where we have the impression, and we can say it, that it was better before, at the time when we were in single parties, where we had presidents who were real builders.

When you take countries like Cameroon, Ivory Coast, you see very well that at the time of the single party, there were real projects. Since democracy arrived in these States, it’s impossible to do things over time because we have initiated a cycle of permanent renewal which means that these countries have regressed. It’s something

Which is totally foreign to us and which we have not been able to appropriate, since it doesn’t suit us. So it’s clear that this can’t work. The priority is to tackle to the democratic model which was imported and imposed on African States and which they accepted like a sponge without ever questioning it.

This is where you need to start and ask yourself the right questions. What has this model brought us over the past 30 years? This is the central question. Once we have answered this question, we will simply say we can’t keep doing the same thing every time and hope a different result.

It’s obvious, it doesn’t work. But we are already in chaos. Now we have to get out of this. We have to come out of this with our own answers. Africa in general, and the French-speaking region more than the others is sick of its governance, and it is clear to all

The result is largely negative. When we look at the figures and growth indexes, the population has become impoverished, young people are disenchanted. The crisis is becoming more and more acute. Schools that once offered dewormers, vaccines and other Nivaquine tablets resemble poorly maintained stables where the master, helpless teachers, became babysitters

And their pain relief. In short, the economic and social situation has deteriorated almost everywhere. Many nations have even fallen into war. In short, the results, whatever one can say about it, are not good. We are not saying that democracy is bad.

No, it works for others, but it is the fruit of their history, of their civilization. The only way through which people express themselves to make the choice of their rulers, it is through democracy, it is through voting. We have not yet imagined, invented…

God has not yet given us another way to hear the people. I think as Africans we need to change the paradigm and no longer settle for what is less bad. We now wish for the best, and the best for us, it is not democracy. Once this observation is made

Now we have to work, think about a suitable governance system. Multiple governance systems moreover, since Africa is plural. The proposal we are making is to completely forget democracy as it has been presented to us until now. This is a huge scam and we must recognize it, because it brought us nothing.

What did she bring us? Wars. She brought us misery, it brought us division, it brought us tribalism. So it is obvious today that we must put all this behind us. We need to invent a new model that serves a vision that we will have defined in order to have charismatic leaders.

The big mistake we made was trying to wipe the slate clean of who we were from precisely colonization. We put under the bushel everything that was unique to us in terms of culture, values, traditional legitimacy, and we applied ourselves to build a system that was completely foreign to us. The democratic electoral model

As it has been applied in Africa since the famous La Baule speech is, to put it very simply and clearly, a real fool’s game. It’s a lying poker between our leaders, ourselves, between our leaders and external influences. It is a purely electoral system which is based

Just on elections whose sincerity can be doubted. We must stop with the usual plasters which, at best, only delay metastases when not precipitating them. What we say at MANSSAH is clear. We can’t do the same thing every time, and expect a different result. The results are catastrophic. Africanized Western democracy is a failure.

You don’t have to be an expert to see it. The facts are there. We lost a lot of human lives, we lost a lot of money. Just ask yourself what hospitals we could have done, as roads, as universities, with all this money we spent on elections.

Today, you have countries where the head of state is there for more than 42 years, and we organize elections every five or every seven years. How can we explain this? So I think we need to stop making value judgments. and that we are now interested in judgments of reality.

The reality is that we need to change and change now. So what are the root causes of this failure on which everyone has agreed on in the south of the Sahara? Rethinking institutions and governance effectively requires that we first focus on the African man.

It is from his nature, from his way of thinking that his model must spring. It’s his state of mind that its type of administration of society must be constructed. And even if he has to add external influences that he finds beneficial, he must first find himself, rediscover or at least redefine his identity.

The miracle is that people managed to do this. People have managed to think outside of themselves. It’s still a feat that the colonizers brought us to do, and we almost don’t believe it. The African in general and the Sub-Saharan in particular is the only people in the world

That we have managed to convince that it cannot be defined that in relation to his executioner, who deploys all his energy to be accepted by others, he devotes all his intelligence through education, through his way of life, by its consumption, by its culture, to resemble its master of yesterday.

We easily adopt the cultures of others. We do not take ownership of ours. It’s becoming exotic, even for us, to eat African food. So why do you want that the average guy say to himself that this is the future?

With that, I am a respectable man, I am a man of the 21st century. It is important today that we realize that it is totally inconceivable for me to dissociate culture, the cultural heritage of the education that we want to give to our communities. An acculturation that must be

The first of the projects in the reconstruction of Africa. This crime which made our cultures, of our old civilization, of the superstitions of which we are ashamed, who has trampled our divinities, our kings, our legitimacies, the guardians of our civilization, must be the first project.

As the Burkinabe historian Joseph Ki-Zerbo said, a person without identity is like a utensil that anyone can use. Some say that young people born after colonization are not affected by it, that they are free of these complexes. Sadly, they are unfortunately, the child is necessarily affected by education

Given to him by his parents, but also by the environment in which it operates. And if the parent has lost his bearings, if he is lost, he will be more lost since it is first a question of rediscovering one’s real identity.

And if the self-conscious parents, hurt by the violence of history, are ashamed to transmit to them African values, so we make these young people acculturated or assimilated people in their place of life. We make them Bountys to use an expression of their own, mimetic beings who repeat and sometimes apply with zeal

To be accepted what the master of yesterday imposed on his parents as a model. Difficult, in this context, to claim one’s identity, to define oneself as African. In this crime of colonialism, there is an originality that President Bouteflika is right to emphasize today, it is cultural aggression. In colonization

The local religion has become a superstition. Local culture has become folklore. The local language was treated as a patois. And it is on this cultural cemetery that others try to impose their culture and traditions. This cultural aggression is also serious than aggression against a physical person. Solzhenitsyn says: The Germans

And the Russians recovered more easily after the fall of totalitarianism that the colonized after the fall of colonization. And why? Because the cultural identity of Russians, the cultural identity of Germans under totalitarianism was not denied. On the contrary, it was exalted and distorted but exalted, while

That in colonial countries, it is cultural identity that is denied. It’s time to restore this story with its ups and downs, with its weaknesses but also its strengths. A rich but trampled, little-known and bruised civilization. We tried imported solutions, we saw their limits. Now we have to try

Endogenous solutions, and how power was put in place: controlled, regulated, surrounded by legitimacy. So let’s go back to basics. And I don’t think that those who have favored the success of our empires, et cetera, even if the realities are different today, are deeply wrong, I don’t think so.

So I say today: if Africa wants to build a model close to its reality, we must make a return and even a recourse to our history, to our past. See what we did to the Mali Empire, see how it worked all these entities which had such sophisticated mechanisms

That the others have taken over, and they make us believe that they are at the origin of these mechanisms. We want a democracy or we want a system of governance which is modeled on our intrinsic values, our traditional values. We had kingdoms, we had organizations

Who walked in this continent before the colonist came. We have to go back and recharge our batteries from these organizations. The luck we have is that we have not lost this aspect of things. Today, we recognize that these legitimacies have an impact, an influence on their community.

Each of us knows that we owe respect to traditional leaders. It’s something we haven’t lost and we must now put these legitimacies back at the center of the game. Africa did not begin to exist with colonization. Africa has a full and rich history, with great empires,

With great kingdoms which had models of development fairly elaborate, which had sufficiently effective political systems. We can draw on these models for inspiration just like we can look elsewhere to see what works. China is a democracy with Chinese characteristics, contextualized in relation to their history,

In relation to their values, in relation to their culture, and with this they succeeded in building the greatest economic power in the world today. When you look at the Gulf countries, they are not democracies, they chose a political system that they believed was best adapted to their vision, best suited to their progress.

It is only in Africa where we have a system which corresponds to nothing, which is not based on any vision, so we must go, precisely, in the history of the African continent and also look at what is being done elsewhere and that works, create a combination, but above all not settle for

Of what was imposed, it does not work and the facts are there to demonstrate it. Very often, when we talk about tradition, African civilization, of our habits and customs which must be restored, which must be valued, many are still those, totally unconsciously, formatted by our lives, by hegemony

Of Western civilization, who see it as a fantasy or a step backwards, who perceive those who claim it as obscurantists, who see it as a refusal of modernity. When we are spoken to of archaism, when we speak precisely to put traditional legitimacy back at the center of the game,

I have to admit that I am surprised. For what, as usual, it is African initiatives that we are trying to restrict? But monarchies who are precisely above the fray but who reign, who ensure respect for values, respect for the culture, history, of several European countries, why can’t we find anything wrong with it?

You have the Spanish monarchy, the English monarchy which is there. Why can’t we find anything to complain about? In the Middle East, monarchies follow one another. Why doesn’t anyone find anything wrong with it? In Japan, we were able to combine respect for traditions and modernity. Why would we not be able, we Africans,

To set up a clean system which would allow us to be turned towards the future, but anchored in the past on this base that constitutes our legitimacies? So I think that, honestly, no one has a lesson to teach us. We ourselves must know where to go and stay the course.

We Westerners have confused hegemony and universalism. On the pretext that we were hegemonic we said “our values ​​are universal”. I completely share your point of view because it is a fundamental problem. And so we have an overlooking position towards the whole world, Africa in particular. Except that Africa no longer accepts it.

And this overhanging position will have to be abandoned. For me, the very definition of modernity, it is the ability of a society to respond to the challenges it faces with its own solutions. Well-being, progress, it is in relation to its own historical and civilizational trajectory.

It doesn’t work like a transplant, it’s really something which starts from you yourself to move you from one stage to another. Democracy does not have a single model which can be carried out in different countries. Each country must adapt it to its own situation.

The goal of democracy is the development of the country, it is the improvement of the lives of the people. This is the goal of democracy, otherwise… What’s the point? We must now get rid of our complexes and our intellectual laziness. In the same way as those whose system we copied

Thought about putting in place a system that suited them, which suited them well, we ourselves are going to do the same. We are going to create a mix between our contemporary needs and this ancient wisdom. It is urgent to restore our traditions, our cultures.

And this ambition passes through those who, despite their marginalization, remain respected or at least feared by most sub-Saharans. We hide to see them, but we rely on them when we are in a dramatic situation. Our kings, our traditional legitimacies, guardians of our values, which is only consulted in blocking situations,

As we saw recently in the ECOWAS crisis with Niger. Traditional chiefs were dispatched to Niamey to negotiate. Without them, it is to be feared that the thurifers of violence, certain leaders states of ECOWAS, notably Nigeria, would have, against all logic, is waging war on their Nigerien neighbor, in defiance of centuries-old ties.

Traditional legitimacies are still at the center of the game whether we want it or not. We marginalize them but when we find ourselves faced with a difficult situation Who do we turn to? Precisely: these legitimacies. How to use chiefdoms virtuously and traditional power? I believe that a council of wise men, a council

Of traditional leaders recognized by all in terms of morality, in terms of ethics, could help regulate this. These legitimacies on the basis of our societies. Even today, if anything has persisted, despite everything that has happened over the years, it is the respect that we owe, that we accept to owe to these institutions,

These institutions which come from families, therefore from notability, they draw from there their source of legitimacy, or they are guardians of certain knowledge, of certain know-how, they are masters of the bush, masters of the forest, et cetera. Or they are legitimate which also draw their authority from the religious sciences.

So all of this forms a community of what we call: traditional legitimacies. We must give them a central place. Earlier, we were talking about great empires, great kingdoms. These were precisely traditional legitimacies we had with these traditional chiefdoms, legitimacies which were almost incontestable. Traditional legitimacies are our backbone. For MANSSAH

We cannot envisage reviewing governance, rethinking our institutions while forgetting our traditional legitimacies. Guardians of civilization, protectors of our values ​​and our identity. And they were trampled by political power, it must be said, because our political and administrative powers which followed the colonial period continued this undermining work by marginalizing them,

By making them homeless, we did not remember the existence of these legitimacies that at the time of elections to have a sort of moral anointing, taking a photo with the chef was worth enough to convince the electorate. It’s about removing the kings, the traditional legitimacies

Of this ghetto in which the public authorities, little concerned about the weight traditions, installed them, to give them a central place. We must rehabilitate them through our texts, that is to say that it is not a recognition like that. Our founding texts must recognize their place and say precisely what their rights are,

What are their duties, what is the respect due to them. It is essential that traditional leaders leave the political-administrative system. It’s not their place. They have nothing to do about it, and that is precisely what contributed to the misdirection their power and influence and kill their legitimacy.

We must give them a central place. Today, MANSSAH offers an original governance system, disruptive, adapted to our values, our history, our culture. Within this system of governance the council of wise men, composed precisely of these traditional legitimacies who will be nominated by their peers, plays a central role.

This council of wise men would have a guiding role, that is to say that the important decisions of the nation which will be taken must be in compliance with our history, our values, our cultures in a consensual way, everything we agree on to bring our societies to fruition.

In fact, MANSSAH proposes to create a council of wise men composed of kings, of traditional leaders who would be the guarantors, the guardians of values. This council of wise men will be above the fray and will ensure that from now on, everything that will happen in the nation, everything that will be decided,

Will be in accordance with what we, citizens, have decided. There will no longer be injunctions coming from outside, but it must be consistent with our common will, our common vision of what we want to do with our States. And this Council of Legitimacies would be an institution

Purely African that looks like us, with rules that match us, and they would have their say, their say in the conduct of the nation, their say in the appointment of leaders, their say if this manager does not do his job correctly, that is to say does not apply not this shared vision,

They will have a say in terms of the impeachment mechanism. Like them, they will not be concerned by a desire to please any electorate they will be able to have sufficient perspective to ensure that the common vision and shared is respected by those who have received the vote.

So, if this head of the executive is elected, he knows that he will have to report regularly, and if he deviates from its trajectory the council of wise men is there to call him to order. If he doesn’t understand the injunctions of this council of wise men, whose reminders

Will of course be based on criteria that we will all have accepted, the council of wise men will have the power to dismiss him and dissolve Parliament. Until there, our democracies were characterized by constitutional ruptures, coups d’état. Today, the possibility

To activate the army as a last resort will be devolved solely to the council of wise people, after several steps have been taken. It is obviously necessary, to make these kings, these traditional legitimacies free, shelter them from the need which made it possible to make them homeless over all these decades.

These legitimacies will be completely independent in all respects from the central authority, that is to say that the taxes which will be raised in their community it is on this basis that these legitimacies will function and will live, therefore no link with central power from now on. It will be necessary precisely,

In this new system, working towards this financial independence, give relative power to its leaders in their localities to be able to collect enough money to contribute in particular to the development of the locality and ridding them of all these links which would ensure that they are at the mercy of the administration.

This is what is happening today and this is what we must no longer do. So today, they must be independent. The more independent they are from the central power in financial and other terms, the more they will be able to find their place at that time and we will be able to

Restore their full legitimacy. Overall, traditional legitimacies in our system of governance must be put above politicians, parties, administrations, associations and political games, with an obligation for them not to participate in the political game at all. They can resolve certain disputes since our populations understand better when these chiefdoms who live within these communities

Resolve disputes whose context they better understand and the issues that certain texts which, like democracy, we were also insidiously blown, such as the Napoleonic code, et cetera. So, they will have a role in justice. They will also have a role at the land level. We know that this is an eminently

Difficult and important question today in Africa. Such responsibility cannot be granted without compensation, obviously. We have strong beliefs. We have strong values. When we talk about accountability today, we are only repeating a principle that comes from the West. We have known this accountability for centuries. This accountability is respect for the word given.

This accountability is the protection of the family name that we carry, to which we do not want to leave a task. These things we know, especially the wise men. So between them, they have this knowledge, this charter. And they know that if one of them deviates,

It is the social balance that is called into question. So I sincerely think we can trust them. We can trust them because in their community, those who have been counted will have demonstrated righteousness and I think that this can be duplicated at the level of this council.

And what do we have to lose by trying? Because as one of our members MANSSAH says: it’s better to be wrong on the basis of one’s own errors and those of others. And for 60 years, we have been wrong about other people’s beliefs. Let’s try something else, something of our own.

Between the traditional legitimacies, there will be a rotating system and there will be a charter. And we know the value of traditional charters in our societies. Anyone who does not respect them knows what he is exposing himself to. In our societies, there is no former leader,

The leader is there, or the leader is deceased. So, these charters will clearly explain how power should be exercised within this council of wise men. Anyone who deviates knows what they are exposing themselves to. This council of wise men becomes in fact the organ, the heart of our institutions,

With a rotating presidency at its head in terms defined by each country, according to its realities. We must first make a map of these chiefdoms, since we have no idea today, several have disappeared, others are there but function with great difficulty. So, it’s first knowing where we are.

Make a map of these chiefdoms. Know precisely what the geographical perimeter is, on which they can influence. So it will basically be a sort of decentralization, even if I don’t like this term very much, we can find terms that suit us better.

So in any case, they will have an influence over a certain perimeter. And that will be entirely compatible with the sovereign functions of the State at a supra level. Another prerequisite before launching into the deep and urgent institutional overhaul: the vision. Nothing serious can be done without a clearly defined objective.

Before talking about governance institutions, it is important to talk about the vision first. We must first define what we want to be, what our goal is. If you get up every morning and leave the house Without a defined direction, you’ll never get anywhere, that’s obvious. A country cannot evolve, cannot know

Growth, cannot bring well-being to its populations if a course is not clearly defined beforehand. What MANSSAH offers is, first of all, a vision. This is the first thing, a vision, a course that would be set towards the inclusive progress of our fellow citizens, and this vision would be

Shared by the majority and would transcend all political party trends. First, we will agree on the destination. What is the destination that in a consensual manner, the entire population or those who are old enough to express themselves want to go? In the field it is important to copy elsewhere

Which can be as long as it is not out of phase with our identity. It is imperative to develop, as the Chinese have done for example, as did the Singaporeans, the Emiratis to name but a few, a medium and long term project which is our compass, a compass

Who must not suffer from the mistakes and fantasies of politicians. We have projects, short-termists policies, without any vision to offer to our populations. So the first thing is to establish a vision that would impose itself, which would transcend parties, political currents, which would impose itself on the leaders,

And the goal of this vision is to move towards inclusive progress. This vision must be ambitious, realistic and shared. It must be the compass. We must not put her on the back burner and she cannot suffer the whims and the fantasies of politicians, often quick selling ideas just to appeal to the electorate.

Leaders must now be judged by their ability to achieve, to respect the project, their talent, to implement the vision. If the people, in view of their potential and their wealth in this or that sector, decided to be world champion in its chosen field, politics must put himself at the service of this vision

Without the possibility of turning away from it without the consent of the people. It is certain that if we know where we are going, if we have set a destination with a deadline and retro planning, it is more likely to achieve it. This vision must be validated by the populations, it must be

A shared vision to which the greatest number adhere. Who do we want to be? Where do we want to go? What do we want to become? The day we will answer these questions, we will become the first power in the world. Let’s define our vision, that’s the key.

It is imperative in each of our countries to look into this vision which will allow us to then extend it to the continent in order to see the synergies to be identified. Once this vision is established, our institutions will adapt more easily to the objectives. I talked of many things and of everyone.

What happens to the leader in all this? What will be the new role of the chef? And the boss in all this? To paraphrase the founding president Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga from Zaire and the chief in all this? What becomes of him?

What happens to the president in this reform? In this new model that MANSSAH offers? Because we have to stop with leaders who reign instead of governing. The regimes we are in are hyper presidential, that is to say that the leaders have maximum power both in the executive

Than in reality in the legislative and especially in the judiciary. In addition, they control all the information. The first thing is that they have the ability to change the rules of the game. The numbers are stubborn. Today, when we look, we see very clearly that the number of elections

That we organized and the alternations that we received, that we took out, there is no photo. When we even look why are we doing these elections we ask ourselves if it’s worth it, we spend, we have spent 125 billion since 2000 until today, doing dozens of elections, but for what fruits?

We have no means of control over the leaders who are there, but real monarchs who rule without real control, without any real counter-power. It is the most popular, the most coveted, the most exposed function in the world. The object of all the fights, of the most fratricidal confrontations.

And, paradoxically, it is the most hated, the most denounced, the most hated by the masses. We choose them, elect them, install them in power, but immediately we denounce them, accuses them of all sins, makes them responsible for all our ills. When we talk about the poor performance of our countries, bad governance

Cause of our delay, our divisions, our tensions, the most criticized, the most hated, the most reviled people, on which they are polarized all the resentments are naturally the heads of state, the presidents of the Republic who bring together in their hands

All the powers, which are the masters of the rain and the sun, of the birds and fish, air and water, elephants and ants, in short, all-powerful beings, often in the pay other nations who installed them in business. Corrupt beings, essentially driven by their own interests.

Here is the mirror, the image sometimes a little magnifying, it must be recognized, which is returned to us when we talk about our leaders, our heads of state. A reputation which, unfortunately, is not always usurped. Because we have to stop with leaders who reign instead of governing.

In reality, our political system has indeed generated all-powerful leaders who report to no one, who intervene in all areas: legislative, executive, judicial, military, customary, leaders who are not accountable to any institution since they knew how to exploit the weaknesses of the system to monopolize all the powers. When you are this powerful,

It is easy, with courtiers around you, to lose your head. Only God can not lose his mind with this much power. This is why it is urgent to get out of this pattern which creates demi-gods capable of the worst and too often disconnected from reality.

It is urgent to put an end to this function which has shown its limits. A leader must be accountable to the people. He must report to them. This is why at MANSSAH we believe that we must have the courage to put an end to urgently to this function of President of the Republic

According to this model. The omnipresent president, omnipotent, omniscient, we don’t want it anymore. We no longer want the president who has all the powers, it doesn’t work. We no longer want leaders who lead for their personal pleasure, who report to no one.

We undertake a project that is supposed to last three years, it’s been fifteen years and no one talks about it. So in this system we will give enough power to the leader so that he can make decisions that allow the vision to be respected.

But we will quickly reassure ourselves that there are real counter-powers which will ensure that if he ever thinks of wanting deviate for any reason, he will simply be dismissed in case the multiple calls to order have not produced results. The all-powerful president becomes a slave to the flirts,

Bullshit, those who come to tell him in the evening that he is especially intelligent even though he needs to be advised. It’s not because we swore one day on the Koran or on the Bible, at the time of taking the oath, that suddenly

You have become smarter than you were yesterday and that all your choices and all your decisions are good and binding on everyone. No. Once they are elected for five years, they are almost guaranteed that they will remain in power at least for this period.

No risk of being removed other than by death or a military putsch. Could the situation be worse than what we are currently experiencing? We have monarchs who rule, who answer to no one. On paper, we have counter-powers which are never exercised. So today we have to try something else. We, at MANSSAH,

We are campaigning for the disappearance of this post of President of the Republic. Today, MANSSAH offers an original governance system, disruptive, adapted to our values, our history, our culture. Within this system of governance, the council of wise men, composed precisely of these traditional legitimacies

Who will be nominated by their peers, plays a central role. This council of wise men would have a guiding role, that is to say that the important decisions of the nation which will be taken must be in compliance with our history, our values, our cultures in a consensual way,

Everything we agree on to bring our societies to fruition. And what do we replace it with? Since every country needs a leader. The model we propose is particularly disruptive, we recognize it. We must move towards a model where the head of the executive,

Who could be called Prime Minister or President of the Council or president of the executive, must be the leader of the majority party resulting from the elections. He cannot appoint a personality or one of his supporters to govern, no. He must be in charge himself.

He must take it upon himself to lead the country, to lead the executive with the support of its majority in the Assembly. He must go to Parliament to explain what he is doing. He must be accountable so that everyone can judge the work that he has done.

It must respect the vision that has been previously defined. Generally, the practice is that of the president who wins the elections and appoints a Prime Minister who serves as his fuse. As soon as there is an annoyance, he fires the Prime Minister and finds another knowing that he risks nothing

And he’s going to do his five years anyway. Any fault he commits is absolved by the replacement of the Prime Minister, when we know that it is he who is in charge. The chief executive must know that he must now be accountable.

He is there to implement a program resulting from a common vision, a consensus that the nation will have decided to follow. It’s not about curbing power, no. It is a question of taking legal measures which recall to the head of the executive that he must be accountable, that he cannot do anything,

That he can be overthrown with his government and his majority if he goes off the rails. But at the same time, we must give him enough powers so that he can carry out major projects, so that he can properly lead the country, give him a certain comfort in the conduct of the nation.

We must have a strong leader with extensive powers to implement the collective vision. Why do we have to wait five years or seven years for a mandate to end, because the person was elected, while from the first year we can see very clearly that it doesn’t work? How to stop fees early enough

So that we do not suffer throughout the rest of the mandate the pangs of the person in power? Barack Obama, the former president of the United States, during a stay in Africa, notably in Ghana, who said Africa does not need strong men but strong institutions.

For me, there is no statement as false as that, because institutions do not create themselves. It is men who make institutions. So I say: what Africa needs most today are strong men, because it is strong men who will build strong institutions. So this leader must have time,

This leader must be a real leader. He must not be a puppet in the hands of some foreign power or some financial power. It is necessary that this leader and the powers. A strong leader but who does not reign, who at the same time reports and can be dismissed by simple mechanisms,

Who must be responsible to the National Assembly who can dismiss him by a motion of censure according to clear and established terms. He can also be removed by popular vote, always according to the principles to be decided. We have the citizens’ referendum, the citizens face inappropriate behavior of the head of the executive

Will sign a petition, gather a critical number of signatures which will be deposited with the Council of Elders and Parliament. If Parliament does not take its responsibilities and if the Council of Wise Men objectively estimates and on the basis of previously agreed criteria, that indeed

The head of the executive has deviated, he will inform Parliament, of his opinion in any case. If Parliament continues to support the head of the executive in this erroneous trajectory, then the head of the executive, whoever continues to cling to his power will simply be dismissed by the council of wise men

And the National Assembly will be dissolved, and we will go to new elections. This is what will force the head of the executive to remain attentive to the expectations of the people. And this council of elders could be, for example, the place where the elected leader

Comes to take an oath to be knighted by those who are guarantors of our values, who are guarantors of our cultures. And you will see that it will also give additional legitimacy to leaders. One of the essential new features which should allow to ensure respect for this prerogative

Draws its roots from our traditional legitimacies. So, if this head of the executive is elected, he knows that he will have to report regularly, and if it deviates from its trajectory the council of wise men is there to call him to order. If he doesn’t understand

The injunctions of this council of wise men, whose reminders will of course be based on criteria that we will all have accepted, the council of wise men will have the power to dismiss him and dissolve Parliament. Thus, the President of the Council

Or the president of the executive, in short, the boss of the executive who is no longer the head of the army, who is no longer head of the judiciary, who is responsible before the assembly, before the populations, who can be dismissed as a last resort by the Council of Elders,

Is the leader of the majority and is the one who leads the policy of the country but also its diplomacy. He’s the real boss, but with enough safeguards and counter powers to avoid abuse. But for him to take this position, it would be necessary to go through elections. The elections.

Another point of tension, another point of violence and divisions. We have installed electoral democracies south of the French-speaking Sahara which cost a fortune without almost ever providing a solution. Some say democracy is priceless. It’s debatable. Small inventory: securing offices, printing of the ballots, voting machines,

States and donors spend every five years tens of millions of euros to organize presidential, parliamentary or local elections. And almost always, the bill explodes. In 2010, in Ivory Coast, international partners contributed nearly 252 million euros for the elections, a record in Africa. In 2018, the presidential and legislative elections cost Mali

A little more than 76 million euros, or almost 50 billion FCFA. This is to reappoint a president who has already been in office for five years, three years later he was overthrown by the streets and the soldiers. It’s a bit as if we had put this extraordinary sum down the toilet

And we flushed the toilet, since neither the president-elect nor the deputies are no longer there. They were swept away by the difficulties of governance. This amount put in the elections corresponds to more than ten reference hospitals that the populations really need, hospitals that they will never have.

In Cameroon, we spent in 2018 on the presidential elections a little more than 82 million euros, or 54 billion francs, to return the president to office since November 1982 and almost the same representatives in the National Assembly, the equivalent of 530 quality schools in the country,

Which would considerably change the school and academic world, I’m not talking about the number of hospitals that were built for the same price, concrete things that would have changed the lives of populations. In Burkina Faso, in 2015, we spent on the presidential and legislative elections

A little more than 47 million euros, or more than 30 billion FCFA, in a landlocked country where we lack everything, where hospitals are death halls and where the priority should be the security in the face of armed gangs who kill indiscriminately in the villages of the country,

Where the military lacks equipment to defend the integrity of the territory. After spending the same amount, President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré was overthrown and Parliament dissolved. Still hundreds of hospitals burned on the altar of elections called democratic. Hundreds of kilometers of roads that will not be built. In the Democratic Republic of Congo,

In 2018, we spent 600 million dollars on the presidential election, the legislative and provincial elections, or nearly 350 billion CFA francs. This corresponds to 400 kilometers of roads in this immense territory totally landlocked. Two agro-industrial parks, five new Airbus 319 planes, 4,000 new Mercedes transport buses, more than 4000 primary and secondary schools.

With this amount, we could also have built more than five hydroelectric dams to provide the energy that is so desperately lacking to this vast territory, or even 50 drinking water production plants in this country where people still die of malaria. All this money, this sum, could have made it possible to fight

Effectively and definitively against insecurity in eastern DRC where armed bands still rule the roost, where insecurity has become the rule. After the election, it took more than two years of crisis, blockage, of procrastination, negotiations, arrangements so that the elected president,

Félix Antoine Tshisekedi, at the head of a sacred and heterogeneous union, can finally take the reins of the country, we have just completed the elections in the DRC in December 2023. Amount: more than a billion dollars to renew President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo. But the challenge, ultimately, was to avoid post-election violence.

Fortunately, there were no deaths this time, which is a great satisfaction. When we take inventory of all these ballots there is less than 10% alternation. Basically, the same people win their seats. So we vote almost for nothing. A tragic comedy. This poses with acuteness, with violence I was going to say,

The problem, the famous dilemma between democracy and development. Question that certain intellectuals, a little quickly, full of certainty, sweep away with a wave of the hand. This is just a brief inventory of the immense waste every year, without guarantee of alternation,

And which very often end in crisis, in disputes, in division of the country. Should we continue to vote at the same rate? What is the real purpose of these ballots which bring the same people back to business? For what result? With this money, we can easily organize, build infrastructure

Rather than throwing them away when we know the end result. And so this challenges us and we need to change our model and have the courage to put everything back together and start again on a clean sheet. We cannot say peremptorily that we no longer vote. One says

We no longer vote for anything all the time. The vote must serve something. We must be sure that when we organize a specific election, the rules of the game are clear so that we can be certain that what will result from this election be the expression of the will of the majority.

We have elections when they are held whose sincerity is undermined, elections which are punctuated by violence. This is no longer acceptable. We Africans can decide who will be our leader responsibly, in a manner serenely, peacefully, between us, in accordance with our values and our vision, without any involvement from anyone.

We must invent a mechanism which ensures that the election no longer considered a gadget used to solve problems. It does not work. The election will not solve any problem. Before any election, we citizens must agree on what we want to do with our States. Until then, we have never had a vision.

It is now a matter of agreeing on a short-term vision, medium, long term. What do we want to do? And in all areas? On the national level, on the regional level, on the international level, we will agree on that basis. To get out of these gimmicky elections,

Another phenomenon must be tackled: the plethora of political parties which flourish on every street corner without having a project or real anchoring. Political parties have been our idiot trap. We have countries, we are not going to name them, which have 900 political parties.

When you look, there is no demarcation in terms of ideology. It is unclear why exactly they exist. In the governance system that we propose, there will be a maximum of three political parties. From these three political parties will come a head of the executive who will be the leader of this political party.

It is obvious that we must put an end to all these parties which only aim than sharing campaign funds or negotiating ministerial seats. Maintaining the current system is out of the question with an explosion of political parties which serve more to access to ministerial folding seats or other advantages

Than to participate in the progress of the debate. We cannot have as many parties which represent as much political offering. They can meet in a restricted number given that the vision is previously defined. For us at MANSSAH we think that the parties must stop selling wind

To concentrate on the strategy to be put in place to achieve efficiently the vision decided and shared by all. They must be forced to stick to the vision. The three political parties that will compete will tell us how they will implement this vision.

There will be no more than three visions, there will only be one. The difference will be how they implement it on a temporal term, how they will unfold it, how they will finance it with as little demand as possible access to external financing but from our own resources.

From this ballot, will emerge a majority in the National Assembly and the majority leader automatically becomes president of the Council or president of the executive, he forms his government which he directs with a new, cardinal requirement in the choice of its government team.

The leaders we put at the head of our States must have already proven themselves within their community, of their region, of their commune, that they have shown their capacity already uniting their leadership and also their understanding of the issues and needs of the populations. Those who will work with this president should also,

That is to say those who are generally called ministers, are also local elected officials. Of course, with the exception of positions that can be described technocratic where we would need some sort of expertise. We could make exceptions, but otherwise, most of the members of the government

Who will accompany the President of the Republic or the elected Prime Minister must be local elected officials themselves. Because today we have to stop clientelism, that we stop with cronyism so that those who direct destiny millions of people are responsible to those who hold the real power, namely the people.

This is a real scam. At some point we have to stop with that. It’s not because you’re going to pretend to change the leaders every five or every seven years you will transform your country. The fetishism of two-term limit who animates political debates every day must be questioned.

The youth must stop being sponges that absorb everything as we were to invent our model. The rules that apply elsewhere are not necessarily compatible in an unsuitable environment. They must take into account habits and customs, specificities specific to our societies.

People will tell me that we are all equal, that the rules are universal, It’s nice in university classes, but we know that is not true. It has variable geometry. This rule of two mandates has not always existed in the great democratic nations. In the United States during the crisis,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt remained in office from March 1933 to April 1945, i.e. three full mandates and a fourth that he had started before dying three months after his inauguration. He therefore stayed twelve years and one month in the White House. No one has denounced a rape of democracy. Margaret Thatcher

Was Prime Minister of Great Britain for eleven years, continuously. More recently, in Germany, Angela Merkel remained chancellor from 2005 to 2021, i.e. sixteen years. We do not blame him for the longevity of her reign. Angela Merkel served four terms in Germany because the Germans thought she was the best person

To carry out their project. And when the time came to part with her, there was no doubt in the minds of the Germans, she herself had to draw conclusions, so we can no longer today present these gadgets to us as ready-made solutions.

And we need to have the courage, and I would even say the audacity, to call into question all these certainties that we wanted to impose on us. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu remained as Prime Minister for more than fifteen years. Vladimir Putin, despite a sleight of hand which allowed him to give in

Momentarily his chair to Dmitri Medvedev, has returned and is organizing to stay in business until 2030. If we all want an alternation in power, we cannot make it an obligatory dogma to the proper functioning of democracy. Is Germany a dictatorship? There are no term limits in Germany, but it would not come

It does not occur to anyone to speak of Germany as a dictatorship. The reality is the counter-powers. The most important thing is to ensure that we have put in place mechanisms of counter-power which will allow that no one can use power for personal service. In reality, we need to stop having leaders

Who reign instead of governing, who report to no one. If you have sufficiently strong counter-powers, the question of term limitations become a detail, and an insignificant detail. For what reason does someone serves his country very well should necessarily stop after five years or after twice five years?

If he goes in the right direction and everyone recognizes him but… Let’s continue! so much so that the mechanisms exist to stop him just in case, even after ten years, after eleven years after a year, he is no longer on the path that we all traced together.

We must escape the trap of term limits. This is a real trap because it has not been established that there is a correlation between term limits and progress or development. You have countries that have term limits, but the head of state has been there for over 40 years, yet there was term limits.

You actually have countries today that are managing to do economic progress and people take an example, while in this case the president is not concerned about any sort of term limits. The case of Rwanda can be an example in this case.

So there are a certain number of concepts that have been imposed on us, and which we have accepted dogmatically, which prevent us from looking elsewhere. We have seen that we have limited presidential terms to five to seven years. What did it give? Electoral violence, constitutional tampering desires, nothing positive.

So today, we have to ask ourselves what is good for us. And what is good for us is to give a leader time to roll out the program in accordance with the vision we have adopted. So, there is no longer any question for us of talking about term limits

Because what matters to us it is for the leader to do what we want. If he does not do so, we will end his mandate, but according to a procedure that we ourselves will have accepted. The limitation of mandates is certainly desirable, but it does not guarantee good governance.

Let us have the courage to face this truth. But it must be made clear immediately, without ambiguity: Longevity in power is not a guarantee of success either, no. It can be a real brake on growth, for a little that the leader has no vision, no real project.

To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the countries of Central Africa. where we break records for business longevity: Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Congo to name just a few. We cannot talk about success or growth. Growth is not really happening, that’s a fact. They have been in business for several decades.

However, they still have not transformed their environment. But at the same time, we must get out of repeated electoral cycles and give elected leaders time to work. If they give positive results we keep them, we renew them. If they are not up to the task, we put the impeachment mechanisms in motion.

There should be no term limits. On the other hand, it is necessary to have stopping mechanisms of mandate at any time to stop the charges in case we deviate. And the army in all this? What happens to her? The army that has the power of fire

And who has so often entered the political game, What is his role ? It is imperative to clearly define a place for it. At MANSSAH, we are already working on the issue in order to put an end to this situation of chiaroscuro. This work, these ideas which aim to rethink Africa,

We offer them to you so that you can, in turn, enrich it with your thoughts without taboo and without fear. And that’s not going to be easy because we’re going to be tackling dogmas. We are going to tackle certainties, we will inevitably suffer harsh, violent criticism,

But we are ready because what guides us ultimately, it is the restoration of African dignity. What guides us is being able to to have the feeling of having even a little, contribute to the emancipation of our continent. Your contribution is important to change paradigms, to rethink our Africa.

The bottom line, at the end of the day, is that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. How to make those who have destiny of their population work for this population? At the moment, it is not the case. How can we ensure that leaders are now legitimate and virtuous?

At the moment, this is not the case. This is why what interests us here is to say we are not going to register logically, to respect specifications set by others. We are going to follow a logic of proposing a model adapted to our realities, and it can be challenged.

It’s about no longer letting others think for us. It would be ridiculous, you will agree, if in ten years, we continue to denounce the Constitutions and the imposed texts about sixty years ago by others. Now that we have realized that no one will come and organize our society in our place,

Now that we are more aware than ever that imported models don’t work for us, we must design them for ourselves, and we must no longer accept to leave them in the hands of others, pseudo specialists formatted by others. We have to take care of it ourselves.

This is the framework that MANSSAH offers: the urgency is to think for ourselves, to make our own experience. It may turn out that 30 years later, we realize that we made a bad choice, that it was a bad direction, but at least we will have the merit of having tried something else.

At a time when people everywhere are working to revisit fundamental texts, to develop a model, let’s not be left out, let’s participate actively, let’s forget for a moment at least our differences and personal quarrels to participate in a founding work and decisive for future generations. Join us with your ideas, your suggestions.

Take part in this adventure by joining us on manssah.com To go further and deepen your analysis and reflection on this topic, access our point of view Poker menteur, Only available on our platform JALIYA, these detailed analyses take you right to the heart of the major issues at stake

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