Get Rich or Die Tryin'

We deserve more half-assed coups.

You miss every shot you don’t take

Allow me to state up front that there simply aren’t enough quixotic coup attempts anymore. I am not talking about switching on the television one day to see a brigadier general listing under the weight of his medals, reassuring the public that the nasty outbreak of representative government was at an end. Pakistan and Thailand have got that covered. Cast your mind to the hapless, bumbling, foreign-tainted putsches that are despatched almost immediately. We were good for several a year up until the 1990s and since then it has dried up. Apart from the 2020 flop when 60 guys attempted an amphibious invasion of invade Venezuela (population: 23.8mn) its been a dry decade or so.

Which is why I wholeheartedly applaud Christian Malanga and his ambitious attempt to seize the Democratic Republic of Congo (population: 99mn) with 50 dudes. In the wee hours of May 19 this ragtag group of Congolese ex-soldiers and other hopefuls sped around Kinshasa trying to decapitate the government. They attacked the compound of political powerbroker Vital Kamerhe and then the Palais de la Nation. It’s unknown whether President Felix Tshisekedi was even troubled out of bed. It failed immediately when the infiltrating force was bogged down in a firefight with Kamerhe’s security detail. For anyone thinking of trying this at home: time is of the essence. Unless you have the means and access to bump off every major opponent simultaneously don’t bother. Within a few hours the plotters were either arrested or dead. Malanga would have known the game was over within minutes of being pinned down. He doesn’t have to worry about it though — he had the good sense to catch a few bullets and depart this life for whatever comes next.