For some time, Political Pundits have been predicting catastrophe for West Africa, a region haunted by poverty, insecurity, poor governance and joblessness. It looks like their prognosis is turning to reality. After a difficult 2021, the ninth year of conflict, the violence in the region looks all set to worsen. Burkina Faso is the latest in the list of countries that have recently succumbed to military coups. Before Burkina Faso, military leaders have toppled the governments of Mali, Chad, Guinea and Sudan in the past 18 months.
The process is the same. Amidst gun fires and army presence everywhere, national channels announce to the citizens that they have new leaders, the Constitution has been suspended, the national assembly dissolved, borders closed. The scenes as well as the reactions are also the same. There are loud international outcries, ECOWAS huddles into emergency meetings, international Sanctions are announced and the juntas continue in power.
First came Mali’s August 2020 coup that was followed by a second military coup last May. The military used the public dejection about the parliamentary elections and the government’s failure to protect its people from violent extremists, to usurp power from the President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and forced him to resign on state television. The coup unfurled in Chad in April 2021 when the President who had ruled for three decades was killed, and his son was installed as President in violation of the constitution. In September 2021, it was Guinea’s turn when a high-ranking military officer overthrew the president who had tried to cling to power. Then in October, Sudan’s top generals captured power aborting the power-sharing deal with civilians that was supposed to lead to the country’s first free election in decades. These are the successful ones where the military managed to topple the governments. But there were a couple of failed coup attempts too, such as Niger in March 2021 and Guinea-Bissau this month.
The four coups in Africa in 2021 have surpassed the coup record since 1999, bringing more than 114 million people under military rule. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres rightly called it “an epidemic of coup d’états.”
The dangerous trend of coups in the region threatening peace, security and stability in West-Africa have alarmed other civilian leaders with its potential to spread to other countries. Their worry is not baseless. Coups have proved to be contagious. When the Malian government fell, experts had warned that Burkina Faso would not be far away from a similar fate.
Security experts say that there are legitimate reasons also behind the coups. These include, abysmal performance of the governments leading to severe frustration of the People— major security threats, relentless humanitarian disasters and jobless youth.
All the three countries who were victims of recent coups — Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad — present an explosive situation. Islamist insurgencies are on the rise, exploiting the local tensions and resentment against political elites. Thousands are dead and millions are homeless, while the elite Political leaders lead their luxurious lifestyle. The humanitarian impact has been huge and according to the United Nations refugee agency close to 3.4 million have been displaced due to the conflicts.
ECOWAS promptly suspended Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso from the 15-nation bloc. It imposed sanctions on Mali and Guinea, hitting Mali particularly hard to pressurise the military leaders to commit to an early election schedule. However, according to some local news reports, the move has evoked anger among people who are disillusioned by the governments’ inability to curtail the worsening Islamist insurgency. In fact political observers say that ECOWAS and its Western allies realise that they have limited clout to dampen the support for military leadership in West Africa’s Sahel region. Security experts are of the view that ECOWAS’s reactions are going to be challenged increasingly because people feel that addressing security challenges is more important than restoring constitutional order.
If a country is alone, it can be singled out and punished. Coup leaders tend to stick together — especially in the face of sanctions. For example, when ECOWAS moved to seal borders and halt trade with Mali, Guinea’s junta refused to go along. One analyst described it aptly as a potential “coup bloc.”
These developments in West Africa are something to watch out for and require concerted regional and continental responses. If forceful measures are not taken to arrest the dangerous course, the trend will continue to spread and many more democratically elected governments will fall, toppled by the militia.
