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The Politics of Secession Conflict and Power Sharing in West Africa:
The Case of Togo & Coted`ivoire
Adewale Banjo, PhD
The politics of succession in West Africa in the immediate post-third wave era has left much to be desired and by extension has affected the quality of democracy in the sub-region. Articulated in different ways and at different inter-locking levels in each of the countries of West Africa, the politics of succession has, for two basic reasons, clearly become worthy of closer scrutiny both from a policy dimension and in terms of the kinds of follow-up research work that would need to be undertaken. The first reason centres on the fact that succession politics is, by definition, central to the quality of civil rule and its long-term sustainability. Secondly, the ramifications of the succession process are integral to the apparent disconnect between the actual practice of democracy as experienced across West Africa and the democratic aspirations of the bulk of citizenry. By means of descriptive approach and content-analysis of primary documentary sources as well as data collected from fieldwork in West Africa, the article describe the geo-political setting of Togo and Ivory coast, process of constitutional summersault, and the transitional crisis in both countries against the background of a sustained opposition from armed political in Cotedivore and civil rights movement Togo. The article concludes by observing that the crisis is not over yet as the struggle straddles the continuing manipulation of geo-ethnic divide in Togo and Cotedivoire.
Adewale Banjo a former UNESCO, Fulbright Summer Fellow and George Soros/Open Society & CEU Fellow is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Zululand, KZN, South Africa.
[E-mail: afreb@yahoo.com] [Mobile: +27 72 629 8460]
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