Africa 2023: The year of coups…and a near-coup!

Political instability and economic crises, partially a legacy of Western colonisation of Africa, have plagued countries of the continent for many decades.

Since 2020, back-to-back anti-colonialist military coups have rocked the West African region, ranging from Guinea to Burkina Faso and Mali. In 2021, Chad’s army came to power.

In July 2023, Niger experienced a coup, followed by another coup in Gabon, when the military seized control of the Central African state.

The series of coups, coupled with the anti-Western cultural endeavours of some African states, have indicated that political dynamics are changing across the continent and that Africa, as a whole, is moving in a new direction.

Mali, where the first anti-Western military coup occurred more than three years ago, dropped French as its official language in July, signalling that anti-colonialist sentiment has become a growing trend across West Africa. Mali also expelled French troops stationed in the country and cut diplomatic ties with its former coloniser.

Niger coup

On July 26, the African state’s military leadership ousted the country’s elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who unsuccessfully tried to quell terrorist activities across Niger with the help of French troops.

The president's apparent failure against armed groups — from Boko Haram to Al Qaeda’s regional branches, which have been active across the Sahel region — created a popular backlash against both his leadership and France, the former colonial power in Niger.

Niger’s army, like the military leaders of West African states Mali and Burkina Faso, used popular anti-French and anti-colonialist sentiments to facilitate its coup, accusing Bazoum of serving as the representative of Western interests, according to experts.

“We can see a coup axis stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Interestingly, if we look at the recent coups across the Sahel, it is not a coincidence that it followed a horizontal direction from west to east from Guinea to Mali and most recently Niger on the line followed by French colonialism in the past,” Yunus Turhan, the managing director of Mediterranean Basin and African Civilizations Research Center at Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University, told TRT World in a previous interview.

In September, Niger’s military-led government deported the French ambassador to the African state, Sylvain Itte, and expelled the remaining 1,500 French troops stationed in the country, citing counter-terrorism activities led by the detained president.

The people of Niger and West Africans in the Sahel region — which accounted for far more terrorism-related fatalities than anywhere in the world last year, constituting 43 percent of the global total — have long suffered from both political and military instability, partly a legacy of Western colonialism, as well as large-scale corruption schemes.

In 2007, terrorism-related fatalities in the Sahel comprised only one percent of the global total. The sharp increase in 2022 demonstrates how the region has become a hotbed of terrorism.

Gabon coup

Five weeks after the Niger coup, Gabon’s army launched a military intervention and toppled the government of the country’s longtime civilian leader, Ali Bongo Ondimba, following a disputed presidential election in which poll monitors found irregularities.

Like Niger, Gabon is also a former French colony that has long been led by the Bongo political dynasty — backed by Paris since the country gained its independence from France. Many analysts see family dynasties like the Bongos as the continuation of French colonial rule, but dressed in African suits.

“The systems of government that former French colonies have, which were imposed by Paris, are no longer fit for purpose. In a country like Gabon… one family has ruled for about 50 years. That’s not really a government; that’s a kingdom — and they are not an outlier,” Chris Ogunmodede, a foreign affairs analyst on African politics, told CNN.

Other countries in Central Africa like Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville and Equatorial Guinea all have political dynasties like Gabon’s Bongos. While family reigns — which have also largely been corrupt — are not democratic in nature, but France and other Western states have chosen to pay no attention to what’s happening in the region as long as their interests are not compromised.

But Gabon’s coup — which triggered massive celebrations across Libreville, the country’s capital — clearly showed that it’s not just political dynasties that are losing their influence across Central Africa, but that the power of Western hegemonies may soon be a thing of the past.

In 1964, when the Gabon military junta toppled pro-French leader Leon Mba, Paris immediately sent troops to defeat the coup and reinstated the ousted president. But after the August coup in Gabon, France’s reaction was subdued, with its diplomats only protesting the military intervention after its troops had recently been forced out of former colonies like Mali and Niger.

“The ongoing events in Gabon, taking place in the wake of the coup in Niger, shine another spotlight on France’s dysfunctional relationship with its former colonies in Africa and the damaging ways Western support for autocrats on the continent is just as corrosive to democratic governance as the military coups they claim to oppose,” Ogunmodede said.

“They don’t have any attachment towards France… like their parents or grandparents [did]. They do not believe France should have the right of first return in their countries and they want a multiplicity of partners, not just France,” he added, referring to the younger generations across West and Central Africa.

What happened in Guinea-Bissau?

Finally, towards the end of the year, there was also an “attempted coup” in Guinea-Bissau, a West African country that had been under Portuguese colonial rule until 1974.

In the wake of violent clashes between different army factions, President Umaro Sissoco Embalo dismissed Prime Minister Geraldo Joao Martins, replacing him with Rui Duarte Barros, who is specifically tasked with fighting corruption.

There have been at least 10 coups or attempted coups in Guinea-Bissau since it obtained its independence in 1974, with only one democratically elected president completing a full term in office.

Embalo, who was elected to serve a five-year term in December 2019, survived a failed overthrow in February 2022.