Published in Data Dive
A new wave of coups in Mali, Guinea, and recently, Burkina Faso, all francophone countries, has reawakened West Africa’s infamous nickname – “Africa’s coup belt”.
August 21st, 2023
When soldiers in Burkina Faso sacked the government on January 23, 2022, we analysed the incidence of coups on the African continent in one of the most-read editions of Data Dives.
In the first section of the February 11, 2022 edition – France’s Unweaned Colonies, Facing Unsparing Cancers and Nigeria’s Unhappy Clinicians – we noted 7 things:
The Greater the French presence in any African region, the higher the incidence of Coups there.
There is more French presence in West Africa than in East, North, Southern, and Central Africa.
West Africa alone (out of the 5 geographical regions) holds 57% of all successful coups in Africa.
It is 53% likely that the military will attempt a coup in a former french colony in West Africa.
Citizens of francophone West African countries see coups as an answer to France’s colonial menace in their land.
The Possibility of Coups in Anglophone West Africa has drastically reduced
The trend of Falling Francophone Democracies is proportional to Rising Anglophone Autocracies.
19 months after the successful Burkina Faso Coup, The Nigerien army toed the line of their Burkinabe counterparts. They repeated the same excuse for toppling the government. Their citizens pointed the accusing finger in the same direction – France.
The results of the analysis then stand today. Here is what we wrote then:
A new wave of coups in Mali, Guinea, and recently, Burkina Faso, all francophone countries, has reawakened West Africa’s infamous nickname – “Africa’s coup belt”.
France still treats the majority of its former African colonies as politico-economic dependents, and this coincides with political instability and a high incidence of coups in these unweaned colonies.
While Nigeria has not witnessed a successful coup since its latest yield to democratic governance in 1999, many still see a steady descent from democracy to civilian autocracy and seek to flee the ensuing state of anarchy.
Francophone countries in the Sahel region of Africa fight on in a decade-long battle against Islamic jihadists of various sorts. The inability of the elected governments to deal decisively with the protracted insurgency, with its toll on military and civilian casualties, has been given as the reason for the recent coups.
Surprisingly, Burkinabes received the news of the latest coup in their country with cheers. A Reuters reporter saw a group burning a French flag just hours after the coup, while placards read, “Together we say no to France. Shit to France!” signalling that the pusche was more about whittling down the influence of France in the government of the country than an unbridled lust for power by some section of the country’s military.
And Mali too, a country that has witnessed 2 coups in the last two years, equally points the accusing finger at France, their presumed ally in the war against the Jihadists. The newly selected interim Prime Minister of Mali alleged that France came to divide the country and used their time in the country to spy on the country’s newly-built military bases.
Last Christmas, Emmanuel Macron cancelled his visit to the French troops in Northern Mali because the leadership of the country refused to meet with him. Last week Mali expelled a French Diplomat, Joel Meyer, from the country because France’s “Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian last week said the Mali junta was “illegitimate” and “out of control”, according to a BBC report.
The BBC report also noted that “Western powers are also concerned about Russia’s growing involvement in the former French colony.”
West Africa holds the record for the highest number of successful coups, attempted coups, coup plots, and alleged coups in Africa between 1946 and 2004. Coincidentally, the region has the highest number of former French colonies.
France colonised 9 of the 16 countries in West Africa. Britain colonised 4, Portugal colonised Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, while the United States of America supervised Liberia.
Conversely, within the period, the lowest cases of coups were in Southern Africa, a region where France had no colonial presence.
Between 1946 and 2004, 46 of the 81 successful coup d’etats in the 5 regions of Africa occurred in West Africa alone. Also, 51 of the 125 attempted putsches occurred in West Africa.
The West African subregion also had the highest number of coup plots, with 20 of the total 37 plotted coups. Besides, 23 of the 53 alleged coups occurred in West Africa alone.
There are growing concerns that the new wave of coups in Francophone countries could spread to other West African countries, especially those facing similar political instability and prolonged insurgency like Nigeria.
However, historical data and recent records on coups allay these fears, at least for Anglophone West African countries like Nigeria.
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Records of coups in West Africa between 1946 and 2004 show that 52% of the successful coups in the region were staged in Francophone countries, while 37% of the successful coups were staged in Anglophone countries.
Also, while 53% of the attempted coups were set in Francophone countries, the figure was 31% for Anglophone countries. However, the two blocs had a fair share of plotted coups, with 50% each.
There were also 48% of alleged coups in Francophone West African countries as against 30% in Anglophone countries. France’s former colonies recorded 51% of all the classes of coups in West Africa, while the Anglophone countries recorded 32% of all classes of coups.
It is more assuring that, since 2005, no alleged, plotted, attempted or successful coup has been recorded in any anglophone West African country or in the 2 Portuguese-speaking West African countries. But the opposite is the case for the francophone countries.
In 6 of the 9 Francophone Countries in West Africa, there were 11 successful coups and 2 attempted coups between 2005 and January 2022.
While Anglophone countries in West Africa have seen fewer coups than their Francophone counterparts in recent times, their surviving democracies are increasingly becoming autocratic. Nigeria and Gambia, for example, have experienced tumultuous election seasons and increased autocratic tendencies by their civilian leaders.
Despite Nigeria’s troubled state history with insurgency, secessionist agitations, and other forms of state sabotage, there has been no coup event since 1999, when the country transitioned to democratic governance, except the alleged coup plot in 2004 involving Major Hamza al-Mustapha, Lt. Col. Mohammed Ibn Almar Adeka, Onwuchukwu Okorie, and Navy Commander Yakubu Kudambo.
However, the country’s human rights record has dipped ever since. The notable autocratic stance of the government includes the promulgation of laws and deployment of tools and technologies to stifle freedom of expression, breach citizen privacy, and repress the free Press. This is evident in the Twitter ban episode and arrest and detention of people on account of their posts on Facebook and other social media platforms.
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A new wave of coups in Mali, Guinea, and recently, Burkina Faso, all francophone countries, has reawakened West Africa’s infamous nickname – “Africa’s coup belt”.
