By BISI OLAWUNMI
Before the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its chairman, President Goodluck Jonathan, are stampeded by the ‘international community’ into taking military action to overthrow the government of Cote d’Ivoire on behalf of a claimant to the presidency of that country arising from a disputed presidential election run-off, it is important to have an historical introspection and as well sound a note of caution.

Gbagbo and Quatarra

It is also important to note that Quattara has been the recurring decimal in the decades long Ivorien political crisis since contesting the presidency in 1993 with Henri Konan Bedie, the elected president of the National Assembly, who, by constitutional provision, should automatically succeed the late President Felix Houghouet-Boigny.
Quattara was a protégé of Houghouet-Boigny who, under an accommodation and assimilation policy, appointed Quattara to high profile offices, including ambassador to the U.S. and as prime minister, the position he was holding when Houghouet-Boigny died. He never contested for an elective office, except for the presidency.

That was when his indigeneship of Cote d’Ivoire became an issue and Cote d’Ivoire has not known peace since. Bedie had declared him a non-native while coup leader, Gen. Robert Guei, who Quattara thought would install him in power, even went ahead to conduct a referendum in 1999 where Ivoriens voted to bar sons of immigrants from the presidency. It was President Laurent Gbagbo that restored Quattara’s citizenship to achieve peace in the land.

The indigene-settler dichotomy, a critical factor in the Ivorien saga where settlers constitute 26 per cent of the population, 70 per cent of the settlers being from Burkina Faso, is currently being played down with regard to Quattara’s power bid. Quattara has roots in neighbouring Burkina Faso, among the world’s poorest countries.

Cote d’Ivoire’s prosperity had attracted immigrants across West Africa, including Nigeria.
So, before Jonathan gets mobilised into misplaced bravado of leading a posse of hypocritical ECOWAS leaders on a misadventure to overrun Cote d’Ivoire , he needs to consider the implication for the safety of the lives and properties of an estimated one million plus Nigerians resident in Cote d’Ivoire. The Ghanaian president, who places value on the lives of his country’s one million citizens resident in Cote d’Ivoire, has backed out of a military solution to the impasse.

But, then, the average Nigerian leader places little value on the lives of her citizens, hence Jonathan may see Nigerians in Cote d’Ivoire as expendable. Afterall, here in Nigeria, are we citizens not daily maimed and killed, with impunity, by all kinds of violent elements for which Mr. President only make pious statements of condemnation? Smoking Jos stares us all in the face.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday, January 8, 2011 also embarked on a shuttle diplomacy in Abidjan, trying a replay of his past as a credible international statesman, a status now diminished on account of his supervised Nigeria’s 2007 elections roundly condemned by the same ‘international community’ seeking Gbagbo’s ouster, as the worst in its monitoring history. So, you ask: on what moral pedestal was Obasanjo standing trying to pressure Gbagbo to step down for Quattara?

The main poser to address in the Ivorien crisis is the issue of who has the final say in election matters. The fact is that it is the constitutional court which has this authority to review/validate election results announced by the electoral commission.

The court declared Gbagbo winner of the November 28, 2010 re-run election between him and the runner-up Quattara. In the main multi-candidate presidential election, Gbagbo, the university lecturer-turned-politician, had led the pack with 38 per cent of the vote with Quattara trailing with 32 per cent. In the re-run, the constitutional court had declared Gbagbo the winner, on valid votes cast, after discounting results from some constituencies where voting was flawed as invalid.

The electoral commission had earlier declared Quattara winner incorporating those votes. This was similar to the governorship election dispute in Osun State where the Court of Appeal upturned the victory handed Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola by the election tribunal by invalidating the votes in 10 local government areas where rigging was found and declared contender Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola the winner, based on valid votes cast.

While the constitutional court declared Gbagbo the winner, the UN Resident Representative in Cote d’Ivoire declared Quattara the winner, setting a dangerous precedent.

Thus a pertinent issue in the unfolding Ivorien saga is the role of the United Nations. Now, where in the UN Charter does the representative derive the authority to assume the role of a returning officer or resident electoral commissioner to announce results for an election in a member-nation? Perhaps, the fact of Quattara having been Ivorien ambassador to the U.S and senior official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) explains why the ‘international community’ is rooting for one of its own!

But if Cote d’Ivoire’s legitimate electoral process prescribes that it is the constitutional court that has final authority of validation/review of election result declared by the electoral commission, on what basis can ECOWAS or the so-called ‘international community’ dismiss such legal process and its verdict? This was the position articulated by President Yayah Jammeh of The Gambia who, while dissociating himself from ECOWAS’ stance to force a Gbagbo step down, pointed out that the constitutional court operates in all French-speaking West African countries.

It is instructive that a constitutional court is being proposed for the African Union by the AU Peace and Security Commissioner, Ramtane Lamamra, to have final say on election disputes in African countries. Until then, it is only reasonable that the final say on elections by national constitutional courts should be respected.

Similarly instructive is the Financial Times of London editorial headlined “Banishing demons in Ivory Coast” where it advised against Western troop intervention but urged: “rather, African nations should be helped to ready troops as part of the planning towards a broader and more muscular intervention.” That is an invitation to African body bags.

The media, including the strident Nigerian chapter that weeps more than the bereaved, have simply been on one track of demonising Gbagbo as the villain. Such media position, which jettisons fairness in reporting, and fails to provide background, turning journalists into partisan advocates in conflict situations, has endangered journalists worldwide.

In highlighting the historical perspective of the crisis, the poser is: why is Quattara the only contestant for the Ivorien presidency whose indigeneship of the country has been disputed over the years provoking the Ivorite policy of Cote d’Ivoire for full- blooded Ivoriens?

The crisis engendered by his power struggle with Bedie since 1993 prompted a military coup by Guei in 1999 that later failed, a 2000 election won by Gbagbo but disputed by Quattara, and a mutiny by soldiers on September 19, 2002 leading to a civil war between 2002 and 2003 which polarised the country along south-north lines with rebellious soldiers holding the northern half.

A reconciliation brought the rebels, sympathetic to Quattara, into Gbagbo’s government. But, with the current impasse, Guilaume Soro, the rebel leader-appointed prime minister, has gone back to join forces with his mentor, Quattara. With three failed attempts at the presidency, either through the ballot or the bullet, Quattara is now pushing again for the bullets of ECOWAS soldiers to install him president of Cote d’Ivoire . ECOWAS should be wary of obliging him and stepping into a quagmire.

* Olawunmi, a former Washington correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), teaches media and politics at Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State.