Rising Coup Attempts In Africa

Recently, there has been a surge in coup attempts in Africa. According to report, the African continent has recorded 21 coup attempts by the military to overthrow the incumbent government in Eight years. Data sourced from the global instances of coups shows that 38 percent of such attempts have been successful since 2015. Lately, I began to wonder why there have been incessant coup attempts in Africa. One thing I know is that citizens of a lot of African nations are tired of being ruled without any positive/meaningful change occurring.

Some have summoned the courage to take laws into their hands to topple the current government without much concern of its consequences. A few others no longer have to wait for elections again to vote these leaders out of power because they know that the system will be rigged, which will see them continue to sit in power. Most of the coups have mostly been recorded in Western and Central Africa. From 2020 Africa recorded a drastic increase in coup attempts and successes with 11 attempts and 6 successes.

According to statistics from 1950 till date, there has been a record total of 494 coup attempts in the world, of which a total number of 222 took place in Africa. One can hardly go a day without seeing news of a coup attempt carried out in Africa. Most coup attempts have been as a result of a lack of good governance. Africa has been ravaged with power-hungry and sit-tight leaders like Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni, Muammar Gaddafi, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, etc, who all refused to adhere to the Constitution where power has to rotate. They had no intentions of handing over power, some even went to the extent of amending the Constitution to suit their selfish interest.

I feel most African citizens have been pushed to the wall enough and they have deemed it fit to fight for what belongs to them. I won’t be surprised if a coup attempt in one African country, inspires another African country facing a similar challenge to take a cue from, which might probably be the reasons for the recent coup attempts. Just like the case of the Haitian leader Jovenel Moise who was murdered through a coup, although this never happened in Africa, but some African nations have been spurred to replicate such act.

I have the inkling that more coup attempts will rise because it seems like there is no change in view for most of these corrupt African leaders. Also on the other hand, if carrying out a coup was an ideal solution to fight corruption, Africa would have been better off today, but there seems to be no significant change evident.

Most of these uniform men who topple a sitting government, only go there to end up as dictators with not much difference from the past leaders. They often adopt an authoritarian system of government ruling the people with absolute control. A case study of Nigeria, where previous governments that were toppled by coups never did anything positive. Rather they went there for their selfish interest and also looted funds impoverishing the lives of its citizens.

Almost all military coups in Africa improved nothing. On the reason why coups are increasing in Africa. A former chairman of the National human rights commission Mr. Chidi Odinkalu attributed the coups in Africa to a lack of credibility in elections on the continent. He stated that “elections are becoming laughable processes, more like a necessary ritual done just to fulfill all righteousness by which authoritarian regimes and dictators procure their continuance.

I cannot but agree with his statement because most elections in Africa, don’t reflect the will of the people and the AU and Ecowas have been silent on these issues. Most coup attempts have been fuelled by the failure of Ecowas and AU to condemn rigging of elections and illegal constitution amendments. Most African citizens have felt that since these big bodies have lost their authority to influence decisions to punish erring officials, then they will have to step in and do things their way.