Ghana’s 2012 Presidential Court Challenge: Panic and the Lessons Learned When Democracy Worked Too Well

Ghana’s 2012 presidential elections ended with the incumbent, John Mahama, winning, and Nana Akufo-Addo, representing the main opposition party filing a motion at Ghana’s Supreme Court to challenge the result. The opposition was exercising the right of the constitution grants political candidates to file a petition in court to nullify elections if they suspected fraud. This electoral challenge was the first of its kind in Ghana involving presidential candidates, and the first the court televised live. Ghanaians followed the proceedings in their finite detail not only for the unfamiliar terms like ‘pink sheets’, ‘over-voting’, and ‘contempt of court’ that were thrown around, but also for dreading the violence they feared would emanate from the final verdict. People had an irrational fear their country might plunge into civil conflict as many African countries had experienced following elections. The court challenge the opposition instituted was a mixed blessing for Ghanaians, as it proved that a candidate and a party discontented with an election result willing to use the due process of law to seek redress could do so unhindered. On the other hand, the novelty of the court challenge and doubt about the ability of Ghana’s law enforcement establishment quelling a spontaneous upheaval from the losing party, if one occurred, put the nation on edge. To the relief of Ghanaians, however, the court decision came and went without a whimper, leaving in its trail many teachable lessons for the country. This paper analyzes the unique ways Ghanaians explored to mitigate the full effect of the anarchy they feared and hope other African countries learn some lessons from them

President Al Bashir’s Dance-Tease With the ICC: Did the ICC Unfairly Get Its Comeuppance for Singling out African Leaders?

This paper examines why the ICC indicting President Al Bashir has culminated in a rapid deterioration in relations between African countries and that transnational organization. The paper uses the atrocities the Sudanese government committed in Darfur to examine the disputatious issue of official immunity and whether President Al Bashir, as an incumbent head of state, should enjoy it. Irrespective of the merits and demerits of official immunity being exten+ded to top public officials accused of crime, African leaders have shown a near unanimous disdain for the ICC since the organization began to push for President Bashir’s indictment. This paper examines to extent to which the ICC through its actions is blamable for precipitating the deteriorating relationship between itself and the AU. Alternatively, governments of the AU may not escape blame for capitalizing on the ICC’s awkward move on Bashir to rid themselves of an organization the international community set up to clamp down on human rights abusers throughout the world. There is no disguising that many African leaders feel gleeful for masterfully setting up a firewall that ostensibly blunts the ICC’s ability to use the long reach of the law to bring violators to justice. The ultimate losers of this break down of trust have been Africans who since the dawn of independence have been at the receiving end of governmental brutality and injustice. These are the poor, the working class, the politically unconnected, and people who dare raise their voice against corruption and egregious human rights abuses.

The Menace of Secession in Africa and Why Governments Should Care: The Disparate Cases of Katanga, Biafra, South Sudan, and Azawad

If there were animminent threat to the integrity of African states it would be the possibility of a group or region breaking away Ironically secession is one threat which few African governments want to acknowledge exists because implies giving tacit recognition to the most reprehensible behavior any group or a region can perpetrate against the state Pursuing such policy of not acknowledging the threat of succession has come at a price since it has made governments woefully unprepared to address an actual secession effectively when it occurs African governments lackadaisical response to the menace of secession is not only bad policy but also counter-intuitive The haphazard manner in which European powers spliced the continent into colonies makes every country vulnerable to potentially splitting up for myriad of reasons including a simple disagreement between a region and the central government This paper makes the assertion that a region breaking away is such an imminent threat to African countries that governments need to pay attention and commit resources to address its causes Mali splintering into halves in 2012 shows the imminency of the threat of secession and the unpredictable causes that may precipitate such as event The paper analyzes Katanga Biafra and South Sudan breaking up to underscore the unpredictably of events which may cause a country to break u

The Political and Security Challenges Facing 'ECOWAS' in the Twenty-first Century: Testing the Limits of an Organization's Reputation

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