In Focus: Africa's summer of discontent

General Abdel Fattal al-Burhan (mondeactuel.net)

This has been a summer of wildcat protests across Africa, some of the most serious in recent memory as economic downturns and political uncertainties put millions of the continent's poor under more strain and test their patience to unprecedented levels.

Since June, the continent has witnessed no fewer than sixteen protests spread across this vast geographic expanse with many of them about the rising cost of living for ordinary people in African countries still reeling from a post-Covid hangover exacerbated by the rippling effects of the conflict between Russia and neighbouring Ukraine.

From South Africa to Sierra Leone, Sudan, Senegal, Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, protesters have been taking to the streets sometimes resorting to extreme violence for varied reasons leaving pundits pondering what's responsible for this summer of near-simultaneous discontent across the continent?

As recently as four months ago, the writing had been on the wall for at least the World Bank which last April warned that the continent's economies could be impacted by tightening of global conditions and reduced foreign financial flows into the region, driving people onto the streets.

Albert Zeufack, the World Bank lead economist for Africa predicted then that the soaring prices of fuel and food will cause higher inflation that will adversely affect the continent's teeming poor, especially those living in urban areas. 

Zeufack warned of an increased likelihood of instability thanks to an inflation fuelled by food and energy inflation, heightening political strife already witnessed in some African countries.

Bread and butter matters

These predictions had come to pass in a country like Sudan, where General Abdel Fattal al-Burhan is holding on despite a vociferous protest movement spearheaded by civilians to see a return to civilian rule in the shortest possible time. 

Protesters had more immediate needs on their minds - the cutthroat price of a loaf of bread which had shot through the roof since the fall of veteran strongman Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

Since the bread-fueled revolution, Sudan has been on edge and the tendency of the military to hold onto power after Bashir's downfall at the end of a thirty-year reign, has led to a ''civilian army of malcontents'' all too prepared to take their militancy to the streets and force change.

Scores have died as a desperate post-Covid scenario caused shockwaves on the economy, driving millions of Sudanese deeper into poverty and destitution.

The same post-Covid scenario was being played out in Sierra Leone, the latest African country to get caught up in the quagmire of violent protests which saw police stations torched and their charges killed.

Analysts put the situation down to galloping inflation which explains recurrent shortages of basic commodities like food and fuel and rising prices which an increasingly poverty-stricken population cannot keep pace with.  

''The government has simply ran out of ideas over how to deal with the mounting socio-economic challenges millions of people are facing in Sierra Leone'' one anonymous analyst who belongs to a local think tank claims.

In South Africa, protests have been fuelled by rising power costs which have pushed many local enterprises out of business and caused a huge dent in the drive by Cyril Ramaphosa's government to rein in unemployment especially among young people.

Several people have died since the beginning of August protesting South Africa's mounting economic woes which have seen the exchange value of the local currency, the rand plummet to new post-Covid highs and crimes related to joblessness and poverty go up noticeably. 

Violence in the northeastern township of Thembisa, a financial centre near Johannesburg left two people killed as police used heavy-handed methods to clear the streets.

Former President Thabo Mbeki had warned several weeks earlier of an Arab Spring in South Africa if widespread discontent was allowed to fester.

While protests in Guinea, Senegal and the semi-autonomous enclave of Somaliland have been more of an attempt to make political statements to the leaderships in Dakar and Conakry than anything else on face value, simmering discontent over rising price of basic commodities like food and youth unemployment had sharpened these common disenchantments.

At least four people died when protests broke out in Conakry in July over growing distrust of the military junta led by Mamady Doumbouya, whose transition timetable is widely seen as too slow by an increasingly impatient populace keen to see the back of the army in politics.  

In Senegal, popular discontent over the country's political direction under President Macky Sall since June led to accusations that the police had used a heavy hand to put down protests in Dakar and its southern region of Casamance.

It also led to criticism that Senegal's long-held reputation as a beacon of peace and stability in a precarious West African region was being slowly undermined by the manner in which open dissent was being dealt with using allegedly muscular retribution by the state.

In the self-governing enclave of Somaliland, protests have been directed at the president who protesters have accused of attempting to delay presidential elections. 

President Muse Bihi Abdi said at lease five people have died and scores have been injured as protesters clashed with the police who accused the demonstrators of carrying and using live ammunition.

The protest movement says the president is hell-bent on extending his presidency beyond November when his term should expire, paving the way for fresh elections.

Abdi's critics say he is planning to use the so-called “Guurti” council of elders, the de facto parliament in Somaliland to hang onto power against the will of the people.

Meanwhile the message of the protests in D. R Congo have been mixed with some demonstrations against president Felix Tshisekedi's government over its allegedly failed promises to provide jobs, increase security and provide ordinary Congolese hope for the future, but the main body of protest has been directed at the UN peacekeeping mission in country.

July's protests against the United Nations Mission in D.R Congo or Monusco, left more than ten people dead including a few peacekeepers.

Ordinary Congolese say although Monusco have been present in DR Congo for more than two decades, the security of its citizens has not seen any improvement during this period and demand that the mission leave immediately. 

The demonstrators accused the UN peacekeepers of turning their guns on the protesters, killing at least three of them in the eastern town of Goma in July.

Monusco are being blamed over its alleged indifference to the insecurity for civilians amid an uptick in armed attacks from militias such as the M23.

The same month clashes broke out in the Tunisian capital Tunis, where protesters attempted to march on the electoral commission building after President Kais Saied sacked the election chief ahead of a July referendum which critics claimed was a ploy to arrogate more powers to Mr. Saied.

Last year, the Tunisian leader had fired his entire government, removed over 50 ''corrupt judges'' and dissolved parliament, sparking fears that he was putting the country's hard-earned democracy under siege. 

WN/as/APA