THE SAD REALITY is that President Ouattara did not have a backup plan following the sudden death of his handpicked successor, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who died of a heart attack. OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, MORE THAN eighteen heads of state have tried to remain in power by tweaking their countries’ constitutions. Among them: Namibian President Sam Nujoma, in 1998, Lansana Conte, president of Guinea, in 2001, and Gnassingbe Eyadema, president of Togo, in 2002. IN 2002, the Gabonese parliament voted to remove term limits from its constitution, allowing President Omar Bongo to run for a sixth term. SIMILAR EFFORTS to extend Presidential term limits have been made in Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sudan, and Uganda.

Source: Front Page Africa August 11, 2020 05:26 UTC