Ouattara reversed Gbagbo’s policies and easily gave over energy contracts and an oilfield to French and Italian firms respectively without competitive bidding. Thus, the west can let him stay in power forever.
When the Mask fell off
The August 9th protests in Abidjan were organized by the largest opposition parties and demanded that the Ex-president Gbagbo and the leading opposition figure Thiam be allowed to vie in the upcoming election. The former was disqualified for crimes that occurred during the civil war in the 2000s. The latter, Thiam, is an Ivorian citizen by birth but was disqualified for having acquired French citizenship, a legal hurdle that seems designed to disqualify some, like those that barred Ouattara in the 1990s and 2000s. Ouattara was barred by laws that required candidates to have both Ivorian parents and to have resided in the country for 5 years, requirements he struggled to meet, prompting his backers, including France and the US, to respond by supporting coups, rebels, and sanctions. These actions set the ground for presenting Outtara as a good leader, as they were replaced immediately after he clinched power, leading to recovery from the wreckage of the previous decade.
Denial of Contracts to Neocolonial Pillagers, and France’s Response
The protracted civil war in Côte d’Ivoire in the 2000s was both French and colonial, designed to regain control of a country that was increasingly pursuing its sovereignty. Lakemfa, mentioned earlier, revealed that Gbagbo declined to offer skewed contracts that would drive France’s neocolonialism, which made the imperialist country ravage Côte d’Ivoire by supporting coups and rebels, information that is also seen in other sources. In a particular example from 2002, a compromised Ivorian official working in the country’s sole oil refinery, Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR), embezzled all the oil reserve and fled to France, where he immediately received refuge and legal immunity. Côte d’Ivoire was left in dire straits without fuel or money to purchase this resource when representatives of Total-Elf (the French multinational oil company), accompanied by the French ambassador to Abidjan, went to Gbagbo’s office and proposed to offer him two ships loaded with oil. These vessels were prepositioned along the country’s coast, and the oil could be made available to Ivoirians if Gbagbo agreed to sell SIR to Total Elf for 1 franc. Reportedly, the French guests carried a bag of money to offer Gbagbo, in exchange for control of the Ivorian energy market that would give them a monopolistic advantage. However, Gbagbo ordered the corrupt French out of the country and nationalized SIR, which infuriated France, making it invest more in Ivorian rebels.
In 2002, Gbagbo also refused to award a contract for constructing a bridge in Abidjan to a French company, Bouygues, which offered to build a one-level bridge for 120 billion CFA francs or a two-level one for 200 billion. Afterwards, Gbagbo learned that the Chinese were willing to build a 2-level bridge at only 60 billion, and issued the contract to a Chinese, which further angered the French and accelerated their plots to overthrow his government. Another attempt by France to continue leeching money out of Ivorian’s occurred in 2004, through the French company, SAUR, which operated the African country’s electric grid (Compagnie Ivoirienne d’Électricité (CIE) without paying taxes. SAUR demanded that its contract be automatically renewed, despite setting monopolistic prices and repatriating all profits to France, without investing any in expanding Ivorian infrastructure. Gbagbo declared SAUR’s conditions unreasonable and promised to open the tender to other international competitors, which made France increase support for rebels, further fanning the civil war. According to Ghana-based News Insight.com, French officials often met in the Burkinabe capital with President Blaise Compaore and Ouattara to plot how to overthrow Gbagbo, including in an instant when they slotted a coup for September 2002 when he (Gbagbo) was in Rome. Others confirm that Compaore was preferred by the US and France because he had control over the Ivorian rebels: he was used to cultivating these rebels until they finally overthrew the government.
The Puppet and Perks
Ouattara reversed the policies of Gbagbo and easily gave over contracts to France after he gained power. For instance, he gave an oil contract to the French Total Energies to build LNG terminals along the country’s coast in 2016 without competitive bidding. Equally, he gave 90% of an oil field, Baleine (with gas capacity of 25 million cubic feet/day) to the Italian company ENI without competitive bidding, showing the surrender of the country’s resources to Europeans. He carried out pro-West reforms, including privatization, loosening capital control, and adopting EU regulatory standards in a West African country, which has earned him praise in the West. For instance, the story of post-2011 Côte d’Ivoire after he was piloted to power, is presented as entailing positive macroeconomic growth with GDP expansion of 6-7% and poverty decline from 50 to 39%. However, this rosy picture conceals that this growth was largely a recovery from disruptions of the 2000s, which were occasioned by coup attempts, civil wars, and crippling sanctions. Ouattara was an important instrument in this destabilization, and atrocities committed by his supporters, for instance, the Duékoué Massacre, were concealed and justified. His current move to extend his rule without concern for the country’s stability shows that he is either reckless or he controls forces that brought destabilization. His West-serving policies have led his foreign backers to give him a leeway to do worse than his predecessors in clinging to power through banning opposition figures and seeking unconstitutional third and fourth terms.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
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