Solomon Dersso, PhD

Proud of the launch of this enormously rich resource hub by an African institution. I am pleased to see an idea for whose conception I contributed becoming operational. Grateful for all colleagues @_CSVR who put a great deal to bring this to fruition.https://twitter.com/_CSVR/status/1504017184011563011 …

I also spoke about popular uprisings, noting that the absence of clear standard for determining when popular uprisings are in conformity with the AU norm on UCG & proposed criteria for making such assessment. END

b) the lack of criteria for assessing when amendment or revision of constitutions is legitimate and hence doesn't contradict Art 23(5) of the ACDEG and the need for elaborating the criteria for making such a determination and a dedicated mechanism for monitoring compliance

On manipulation of revision or amendment of constitutions for extending term limits, my presentation highlighted a) the growing trend of removal of presidential term limits and its various adverse consequences, as documented by APRM country reports such as that of Uganda

8) finally, the leadership crisis facing many countries. In most cases where coups happened, there is lack of legitimate and quality leadership dedicated to serving the interest of the public.

7) the growing gap between the capacity of national security institutions & the rising attacks by terrorist groups in a context of actual or perceived failure of the civilian leadership to provide support & leadership in countering the scourge of terrorist attacks

6) the pervasiveness of violations of human & Peoples' rights, including massive and series of serious violations envisaged under Article 4(h) of the constitutive act of the AU.

5) the governance deficit afflicting the security sector involving the politicisation of the security sector, poor state of professionalism of the army and flawed civil-military relations

4) weakness/absence of various not only formal (constitutional) mechanisms for changing government (elections, impeachment, judicial accountability, media, opposition politics) but also informal means of curbing the unbridled power of the executive & holding gov't accountable

3) overconcentration of power in the hands of the executive branch with huge control over all levels of gov't power cancelling out separation of powers and checks and balances, rule of law and constitutionalism & breeding various political ills as authoritarianism & corruption

2) flawed elections - Guinea held elections in October 2020, the coup in spetember 2021 that ousted the gov't that 'won' this election was greeted by the public with celebrations. The trigger for the mass protest in Mali leading to the 1st coup was disputed parliamentary election

Based again on @africa_amani research https://amaniafrica-et.org/critical-reflections-on-the-challenges-to-and-means-of-strengthening-the-au-norm-banning-unconstitutional-changes-of-governments-ucg/ …, I identified eight factors that account for this upsurge of coups 1) the erosion of State-society relationship characterised by the withdrawal by the public of its support and absence of trust in governments,