By TEE NGUGI

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Earlier this month, soldiers attempted to overthrow President Umaro Embalo of Guinea Bissau. In 2022, Embalo survived another coup.

Since independence from Portugal in 1974, there have been at least 10 coups or attempted coups in the West African country of two million people.

In the past three years, there have been 11 coups or attempted coups in West Africa.

Guinea Bissau’s history will sound familiar. After a revolutionary war led by Amilcar Cabral, the country gained its independence. Unlike other anti-colonial guerrilla armies in Africa, Cabral’s revolutionary army was able to capture large swathes of land from the colonial power.

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In 1974, the colonial government capitulated. Guinea Bissau’s future shone like the North Star. But instead of independence ushering in a period of freedom and prosperity, it became the start of decades of political instability, oppression and poverty. Today, 65 percent of the population lives in poverty.

The 2023 Global Hunger Index showed that Guinea Bissau has a serious hunger problem. Malnutrition is widespread among children. Infant mortality is high. Crime is rampant. Infrastructure is dilapidated and services poor. Many of the immigrants risking everything to escape to Europe come from Guinea Bissau.

Amilcar Cabral was assassinated before independence. What an ironic tragedy that his dream of a better life for his people, for which he had fought and died, fizzled out at independence.

It’s amazing that recent proliferation of coups and attempted coups in impoverished African countries has not led to an urgent extraordinary African Union meeting. The coups indicate weak institutions, a governance philosophy still driven by self-aggrandisement and megalomania, and an inability to transform revolutionary or nationalist ideology into a national culture of excellence.

These failures, as Guinea shows, have devastated our populations, and dim our future prospects. If the AU’s mandate is to ensure our welfare, then coups — and what they are symptomatic of — should be an extremely urgent matter.

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It is instructive that the AU will awaken from its somnolence to defend despots from the International Criminal Court, but will continue to slumber even when our nation-states continue losing their foundational purpose of bringing us better prospects.

And it’s not just the AU. The United Nations condemns coups and calls for restoration of constitutional order. But it, too, has failed to call a special meeting to address the crisis of governance in Africa and the devastating effect this has on populations.

How was it possible that a poor country like Kenya can send more than 100 legislators to a legislative conference in the US a few years ago, while rich countries like Japan sent fewer than 10 delegates to the same conference? Why are citizens of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea poor and their leaders billionaires? The idea of the state as a source of largesse for leaders is a discussion we must have at national, regional and international levels.

That or we perish.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator