By Farai Maguwu| The imminent fall of Sudan’s Omar Al Bashir, following hot on the heels of the resignation of Algeria’s Abduleziz Bouteflika are very encouraging moments of people power. It demonstrates that a united people can bring down any dictator on the continent.

However the military assisted transitions have so far proven to be grand failures as power moves from a civilian dictatorship to a military dictatorship. This has been seen in Egypt and Zimbabwe where blood thirsty military dictatorships followed long reigns of military-backed civilian dictatorships. In Egypt the military hijacked a popular anti-govt protest and it took power resulting in Sisi becoming President whilst in Zimbabwe the military rented a crowd to disguise a coup as a popular uprising and a Sisi-type of General is now marching to State House with far reaching consequences on democracy and good governance.

Africans are right and in the right direction but there is need for a new strategy to defend people’s revolutions from being hijacked by the military. The role of the military in such situations should be to ensure a smooth transition and swear to respect whoever the people want to form the next government. Because people are tired of the long serving dictator and their focus is firmly on his fall, it is possible that most people will be in the ‘anyone else except….’ mindset, something being manipulated by the military to muscle its way into power. It will take a few weeks or months before they realize that the military intervention was actually meant to preserve the old guard rather than to allow people power to govern.

The African Union and regional blocs need to address this growing cancer in Africa and put a clause that anyone who has been in the military need at least 10years out of the military to compete for political office.