Editorial: Chadians impoverished amid oil wealth

Chadians impoverished amid oil wealth

The continued story of Africa tragedy is playing out again in Chad and the rest of stand by and watches particularly France and United States of America. Reports has it that the America’s government under President Biden has asked his Embassy to pull out his staff and essential services because of advances of rebels towards the capital and the killing of the President, Idriss Deby. It is claimed that he died on the battlefield after winning a re-election, a story too true to belief knowing the type of person he was and how greedy for power he was. To have risked his life going to encourage the soldiers in the frontline of a raging war with rebels was unexpected of him but it has happened. History playing out itself again, Idriss Deby took power in a coup decades ago and died fighting against rebels trying to oust him. Over 30 years, Deby has been a maverick figure in the Sahel region, with friends in the West but enemies close to home. Deby was confirmed president-elect after securing nearly 80% of the April 11 vote. Instead of celebrating he chooses to go to the battlefield! It would be recalled that late Deby joined the rebel army under former leader-turnedpresident Hissene Habre in 1982, and took command of the army in 1983. He participated in the Toyota War, the last phase of the Chadian-Libyan conflict, where Chadian forces successfully repelled incursions from Muammar Gaddafi’s better equipped army using armed Toyota pickup trucks, assisted by French air support. Support from France would become integral to Deby’s future as kingmaker in Chad and that trend would probably continue as his son is declare interim President against the country’s constitution which would have seen the speaker of the parliament act as President until a fresh elections. Meanwhile, Deby’s son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, has taken over as interim leader of a transitional military council, the military said. A legacy of military take overs has resumed again with his son, who is just 38 years old, already a General in the Army backed by the military taking charge and suspending all constitutional means left for the country and France is encouraging it on. Chad’s wealth in natural resources such as oil was supposed to pull the country out of poverty. But Deby’s regime has been accused of using oil revenues to enrich itself and use it to finance its fight against rebellions. Yet Deby was seen by Western powers as a stable, predictable figure in an increasing war against jihadist fighters in the Sahel region. He also became a key figure in mediating conflict in neighboring Central African Republic and in the Boko Haram insurgency. Late President Deby allowed France to station troops in Chad, Pastor Amb. Elvis Iruh which served his purposes in Editor-in-Chief defending his regime, and allowed France a base from which it could carry out its counter-terrorism operations. Most notable of these was the French-led Operation Barkhane. In 2014, along with Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, Chad became part of the G5 Sahel joint force to battle jihadist organizations on military and governmental fronts. On the home front, though, Deby faced pressure against his increasingly authoritarian regime. Though he won the 2016 election, reports of voter intimidation further tarnished his image. Chad amended its constitution yet again in 2018, expanding the president’s powers and increasing presidential terms from five to six years. Mismanagement and falling oil prices exacerbated poverty and raised discontent in the landlocked country. Chad is one of the world’s poorest nations, with two thirds of country’s 15.8 million people living in abject poverty. As much as Deby was successful in defending himself and his regime, his enemies were never far off. The 2021 election saw violence, with a rebel group calling itself FACT (the Front for Change and Concord in Chad) launching attacks, and last month they pushed for the capital, N’Djamena. While his supporter say he strove for peace and was a panAfricanist, Deby left power in the same way he took it over 30 years ago: in the heat of battle, with a rebel group fighting a corrupt leadership system. What would the West do now? The world awaits their reaction. Whatever way you try to access the situation, another military takeover with his son in charge is another repeat of history and he would transform himself into a civilian ruler and follow the partner of his late father. We pray history will proof us wrong.

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Chad President Idriss Deby dies visiting front-line troops: Army

Recently re-elected president of Chad has been reported to die of wounds he suffered on front line as country’s soldiers battle rebels, according to the army chief before announcing a change in leadership of the country. Chad’s longtime President Idriss Deby, 68, “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield”, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television last month, a day after Deby was declared the winner of a presidential election held on 11th April 2021. The exact circumstances of Deby’s death were not immediately clear and as at press time, it was still not disclosed to the press or the nation except that he died from injuries sustained in the warfront. The army said the president had been commanding his army at the weekend as it battled rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day on April 11. Agouna also said a military council led by the late president’s 38-year-old son, four-star General Mahamat Idriss Deby, would replace him on interim basis. A curfew has been imposed and the country’s borders have been shut in the wake of the president’s death. Experts say that under Chadian law, the speaker of parliament should have taken power after Deby’s death and not his son. “What the constitution says is that in the absence of the president or in case he dies, then the speaker of the parliament takes charge of the country for 40 days and so a transition is put in place until elections are held”. “[But] the military announced that the legislative assembly has been dissolved and that the constitution also has been dissolved, so what they are doing is that they replaced the constitution with their own set of rules.” Meanwhile, authorities were planning a state funeral for the falling President at press time. Heads of state and government of “friendly countries” would be invited to attend the burial ceremony in N’Djamena, before Deby is laid to rest in his home region in the country’s far east. President Deby, who came to power in a rebellion in 1990, won a sixth term after constitutional amendments to

enable him contest and stay longer in power. Provisional results released earlier showed Deby had won by 79.3 percent of the vote. The president postponed his victory speech to supporters and instead went to visit Chadian soldiers battling rebels, according to his campaign manager where he met his untimely death. The rebel group Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south. Agouna had told the media that army troops killed more than 300 fighters and captured 150 in Kanem province, about 300km (185 miles) from N’Djamena. Five government soldiers were killed and 36 were wounded, he said. It is believed that the President got wounded in this attack and he did not recover from his injuries. Although the military claimed they had “liberated” the Kanem region. Such claims in remote desert combat zones are difficult to verify. Deby’s latest election victory had never been in doubt, with a divided opposition, boycott calls and a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed. The president had campaigned on a promise of bringing peace and security to the region, but his pledges were undermined by the rebel incursion. There had been panic in some areas of N’Djamena last month after tanks were deployed along the city’s main roads, an AFP journalist reported. The tanks were later withdrawn apart from a perimeter around the president’s office, which is under heavy security presence during normal times. “The establishment of a security deployment in certain areas of the capital seems to have been misunderstood,” government spokesman Cherif Mahamat Zene had said on Twitter. “There is no particular threat to fear.” However, the US embassy in N’Djamena had ordered non-essential personnel to leave the country, warning of possible violence in the capital. Britain also urged its nationals to leave. France’s embassy said in an advisory to its nationals in Chad that the deployment was a precaution and there was no specific threat to the capital. The Tibesti Mountains near the Libyan frontier frequently see fighting between rebels and the army, as well as in the northeast bordering Sudan. France carried out air raids in February 2019 to stop an incursion there. In February 2008, a rebel assault reached the gates of the presidential palace before being pushed back with French backing. Political leaders expressed their condolences following the announcement of Deby’s death. “France lost a brave friend,” French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement. “It expresses its strong attachment to Chad’s stability and territorial integrity,” it continued, adding it had taken note of the creation of the interim military body and urging a quick return to civilian rule and a peaceful transition. For its part, the White House offered “sincere condolences” to Chadians. “We condemn recent violence and loss of life in Chad,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We support a peaceful transition of power in accordance with the Chadian constitution.”