Constitutions amended to keep presidents in power indefinitely, disputed vote counts and barracks that seize power. Against that backdrop, author Diba Kosi Bilinga invites readers to look at the gada system, the mechanism by which the Borana Oromo people, settled in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, change leaders without violence. His text appeared in Peace News Network on 20 July 2026, and Global Voices is now publishing an edited version.
The failures behind the comparison
Bilinga draws on Ida Sawyer, director at Human Rights Watch, who speaks of a "constitutional coup": those who can no longer win at the ballot box change the rules to suit themselves. Among the examples in the article are Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982 and removed term limits in 2008, and Yoweri Museveni, who did the same in Uganda in 2005. Rwanda, Burundi, Togo, Djibouti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo also changed their constitutions to extend presidential tenure, according to the text.
The author also recalls the Kenyan crisis of 2007 and 2008, when the contested result unleashed ethnic violence with some one thousand dead and 500,000 displaced, according to an HRW investigation, as well as the Ivorian civil war that broke out between 2010 and 2011. Since 2020, he adds, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon have suffered seizures of power.
A handover agreed in advance
In the Borana model, five gogeessas, which function as parties, take turns holding power in eight-year periods, so that each one regains it after 40. UNESCO included the system in 2016 on its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. During the Balli Walirafudhu ceremony, the ruler hands authority to his successor and the entire community accepts that step as irrevocable. For Bilinga, the key difference is that there the heir is known years in advance, whereas in much of Africa succession is left hanging until challenges are resolved.
Preparation and accountability
The Borana, the essay explains, rise through grades from childhood and learn the law, customs and ritual duties before being able to lead. The author contrasts this training with African systems where people vote first and only afterwards is the fitness of the person elected judged. The Gumi Gaayo assembly, convened every eight years under the sacred odaa tree, reviews rules, settles disputes and obliges outgoing leaders to answer in public before elders and hayyuu advisers.
Shared power and dialogue
Although Borana society is grouped into two large blocs of clans, the gogeessa cut across them, so that neither controls the system alone. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, cited by Bilinga, warns that ethnicity is the main axis of mobilisation for African elites. The gada of Abbaa, the supreme Borana leader, shares authority with the hayyuu, with the abbaa seera, who is in charge of the law, and with the oaalluu; according to a description the author cites, this design prevents a single office from accumulating too much power.
Bilinga makes clear that he does not intend to replace constitutions with customary courts. Instead, he maintains that African leaders should adopt the underlying logic: terms written into institutions, leaders trained in advance, structures that cut across ethnic divisions, shared authority and permanent dialogue.
Sources
- Global Voices en Español (CC BY 3.0)
