Africa’s coups keep on coming

By Gregory Simpkins

The African ‘coup train’ keeps on rolling with the latest coup attempt in Sierra Leone. This time, however, the coup was thwarted before it achieved success in replacing the government of President Julius Maada Bio.

President Maada Bio took to the airwaves on November 26 to address the nation on national television and reassure the citizens of his government’s full control of the country’s security.

“The peace of our beloved nation is priceless, and we shall continue to protect the security of Sierra Leone against the forces that wish to truncate our much-cherished stability,” read a statement issued by Bio from his official residence.

Maada Bio won a second term in June in an election contested by both opposition members and international observers. His government is rejecting opposition party claims that the attacks on the armory at Wilberforce on November 26 and subsequent running battles in Freetown were orchestrated to foil political negotiations after the disputed elections.

A source close to the Maada Bio government told The Africa Report: “This operation was launched by a bunch of dissidents who had plotted a coup in August … but on both occasions, their actions didn’t win support among the army.”

Continued unrest after the June elections should have been predictable. The Africa Report cited violent incidents in the weeks leading up to voting day with both political parties accusing each other of fomenting trouble. The violence has been mostly in the ruling party’s southeastern strongholds.

In Bo, the offices of the All-People’s Congress (APC) party were torched. The party accused the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) of “intolerance” and “thuggery.” But the SLPP said the APC started it all when their supporters attacked and attempted to set on fire the residence of their candidate for Mayor of Bo.

Also, on Sunday June 18, the news service reported, the motorcade of the APC presidential candidate, Samura Kamara, came under attack as he campaigned in the southern Pujehun district with both sides trading accusations.

The SLPP accused the APC of attacking their supporters in Pujehun and in the northern town of Mile 91. And during their final campaign rally in the capital Freetown, a supporter of the SLPP was reportedly killed after an altercation with APC rivals.

“Since 1950, the African continent has seen 214 attempted coups – the most of any region. One hundred and six were successful, and 8 have occurred within the last 18 months.

The tension has generally followed the opposition’s complaints that the security forces were being heavy-handed against their supporters and that they lack confidence in the electoral commission.

A week before the coup attempt, the opposition issued a 72-hour ultimatum for the resignation of the chief electoral commissioner and all his deputies.

They also called for international election experts to come and conduct the polls within 3 months. The suspicions that the June elections were not free and fair included international observers as well as the Sierra Leonean opposition.

Mismanagement and corruption

Further, Sierra Leone experienced significant upheaval in the 1970s and 1980s, with several coups. At one point, Valentine Strasser seized power three days after his 25th birthday and ruled the country from 1992 to 1996.

Current President Maada Bio was his second in command and later had himself installed as a military head of state of the junta that handed over to a civilian leader in 1996.

Questions about mismanagement and corruption during the Ebola crisis of several years ago linger. Past instability suffered by the country would certainly make citizens and activists worried whenever the constitutional order seemed threatened.

In the aftermath of recent coups in Africa, there has been significant talk of actions to redeem countries beset by neocolonial control. For example, Arikana Chihombori-Quao, former permanent representative of the African Union (AU) to the United States, claims the recent military coups in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea were part of the early stages of an “African revolution” against Western neocolonialism.

“What is going on now in Africa is a revolution similar to what we saw with the demise of the mighty Roman Empire, similar to what we saw with the fall of the mighty British Empire,” Chihombori-Quao said in an interview with New York-based Nigerian news channel Arise TV on August 17.

“This wave of military interventions is a reaction to the West’s ongoing plunder of the continent’s natural resources,” she explained. “This is just the beginning of the African revolution, and it is not going to stop.”

On the contrary, the American Security Project, a nonpartisan organization created to educate the American public and the world about the changing nature of national security in the 21st century, issued a report in May 2022 that stated that coups are increasingly successful, but not more beneficial to the African publics they reputedly represent.

“Since 1950, the African continent has seen 214 attempted coups – the most of any region. One hundred and six were successful, and 8 have occurred within the last 18 months. Even when coups were rampant in the 1970s and 1980s, the success-to-failure ratio was 42.9 percent to 56.4 percent – low compared to the 75 percent success rate of the last year and a half,” the report stated.

“The high success-to-failure ratio in which the military achieves the governing body’s removal sets a dangerous new precedent: leaders emboldened to seize power instead of winning it.

“Even when possessing power, military juntas present challenges. Often bogged down by international sanctions, civilian opposition, and a lack of governing expertise, leaders find it challenging to consolidate authority, secure their borders, and defend against aggression.

“Subsequently, military governments in West Africa have been unable to protect against Jihadist insurgencies, like their predecessors, thereby refueling the same grievances that the previous government could not solve. The result is a new norm that exacerbates the humanitarian and security situations and threatens to overflow into neighboring countries with similar conditions.”

Moreover, Aljazeera reported on September 5: “First of all, every single one of these coups was led by powerful and privileged high-ranking army officers – men whose lives are far removed from the everyday experiences of ‘our people.’

“And these men appear more than willing to suppress the voice of the people, whenever it happens not to align with theirs. They have no problem with crippling democracy or even physically harming the very people they claim to represent when it fits their agenda.

If the conditions that sparked the coup in West African and Sahelian neighboring states and the attempted coup in Sierra Leone remain unaddressed, the wave of coups in Africa will continue.

“These men not only upended the democratic process by toppling governments brought to power by reasonably free and fair elections but are also dragging their feet about setting a date for new polls. Mali’s military government – like the unelected regimes in nearby Chad and Sudan – has repeatedly delayed a transition to democracy. There is not much hope for Niger, Burkina Faso or Guinea’s swift return to full democracy either.”

Conditions

In May, the United Nations reported that Malian troops – with the help of foreign military personnel – tortured, raped and killed at least 500 civilians during a 5-day anti-dissident operation in Moura in March 2022.

Around the same time, Human Rights Watch reported that on April 20, 2023, Burkinabe soldiers burned homes, looted property and summarily executed at least 156 civilians in a similar 6-hour operation in Karma, northern Yatenga province.

What we are witnessing in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and beyond is not the beginning of an “African revolution,” according to the Aljazeera article. “What we are witnessing is just a few military elites taking advantage of the genuine suffering and frustration of their people to further their interests. They are employing anti-imperialist rhetoric to win support from the streets but doing very little to actually further Africa’s independence and free it from the clutches of outside powers,” Aljazeera reported.

According to the American Security Project, the seven countries in West Africa and the Sahel that have undergone coups lately have three prerequisites:

• The first is poor socio-economic conditions, including high food insecurity, poverty, unemployment, and inequality – conditions that are affected by domestic policies and suffer under tumultuous political instability.
• The second is political instability caused by poor governance and weak institutions. Governments cannot provide essential services when systems lack capacity because of accountability or political safeguards.
• The third condition is a breakdown in defense and security and vulnerability of jihadist elements.

Their report cites Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Benin and Togo as countries sparking fears that terrorist groups in the Sahel could spill into coastal areas.

The crisis in Sierra Leone has been avoided for the time being, but there is little to no certainty that the crisis of confidence in the Maada Bio government has been solved, making the country vulnerable to future attempts at unconstitutional regime change.

If the conditions that sparked the coup in West African and Sahelian neighboring states and the attempted coup in Sierra Leone remain unaddressed, the wave of coups in Africa will continue, threatening the stability necessary for foreign direct investment, continental efforts at economic and future political union, as well as upending global supply chains that are ever more vital due to the critical elements that Africa provides the rest of the world for the transition to alternative energy devices.

Will that be enough to cause the international community to recognize the problem in advance and forestall catastrophes that plague first African people but eventually the world at large?

Let us hope so because a recent video on YouTube claims that within three months of its coup, Niger is set to become the world’s 4th fastest growing economy in 2024. Such claims will fuel further efforts to overthrow underperforming elected governments in search of similarly greater economic success and could overshadow concerns about social needs or human rights.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.