--- title: "Why Is Africa Suffering So Many Coups?" description: "In another era, in another time, it would have been a shock that echoed around the world. On August 30, 2023, military officers appeared on live TV in the oil-rich African nation of Gabon to announce they had overthrown the president in a coup. As one of the continent's richest countries on a GDP per capita basis, the deposal of leader Ali Bongo should have been unthinkable. Had it happened a decade ago, it would have been one of that year's biggest stories. But the world reacted to the coup in Gabon by effectively saying: \"Seriously? Another one?\" Somehow, the 2020s have become the age of coups in Africa. In the last three years alone, there have been nine successful military takeovers in seven countries. Of all the successful coups worldwide since 2017, only a single one — in Myanmar — has been outside Africa. That begs a serious question: why does Africa seem to be returning to the era of strongmen in military fatigues overthrowing governments on a whim?\n\n## Key Takeaways\n- Since 2017, Africa has seen 17 successful military coups while the rest of the world has seen only one, Myanmar in 2021.\n- 78 percent of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa since 1990 have occurred in Francophone states, pointing to French colonial legacy as a key factor.\n- Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP per capita peaked in 2014 and has since fallen more than 10 percent, while global GDP per capita rose nearly 15 percent in the same period.\n- Chinese lending to African nations collapsed from $28 billion in 2016 to less than a tenth of that figure annually since 2020.\n- Political scientist Jonathan Powell found that a coup attempt in the last three years raises the probability of another coup to between 25 and 40 percent.\n- Russia's Wagner Group, Turkey, and Gulf states are filling the vacuum left by declining Western influence, selling arms and services to post-coup regimes with no human rights conditions.\n\n## Age of Impunity: The Gabon Coup and the Bongo Dynasty's Fall\n\nReversals of fortune rarely come more whiplash-inducing than that suffered by Ali Bongo on August 30, 2023. That day, the results of Gabon's election were finally announced after days of counting. According to official tallies, Bongo had won another term as president — his third since taking office in 2009. Not that the victory party would last long. Barely an hour later, ordinary Gabonese watching TV were treated to a sight that has become depressingly familiar in parts of Africa. A group of officers stood before the camera in fatigues, reading a statement. According to the military men, their nation had been suffering \"irresponsible, unforeseeable governance that has resulted in the steady degradation of social cohesion which risks leading the country to chaos. We have decided to defend peace by putting an end to the regime in power.\" With that, Gabon became the latest in a long line of African states to experience a recent military takeover. Beginning with Mali, seven nations on the continent have suffered coups since 2020 — a list that also includes Sudan, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger. Two of them — Mali and Burkina Faso — even managed to experience multiple takeovers in a single year. Others still — like Guinea Bissau, The Gambia, and São Tomé and Príncipe — were targeted by coup plots that failed. History seemed to be repeating itself in Gabon, almost like all those involved were actors taking the stage in a pre-written play. The Gabonese generals placed their president under house arrest. Just as ousted president Mohamed Bazoum did in Niger, Ali Bongo used social media to ask the world for help. And, just as in Niger, the public seemed to celebrate the military's actions. In the hours after the takeover, the Gabonese capital of Libreville filled with ordinary people cheering the generals on. While Ali Bongo had been in power since 2009, his family had ruled the country for a combined 56 years. Back in 1967, his father Omar Bongo became president, only to abolish the opposition and turn Gabon into a one-party state. Although opposition parties were later reintroduced, Omar had by that time become a deft hand at buying off his nation's elites, using Gabon's vast oil wealth to keep himself in power. When he died in 2009, Ali Bongo took over and carried on ruling in the exact same vein, only now hoarding even more of the country's money. As a result, Gabon wound up being one of those countries that are super-rich on paper but simultaneously shockingly poor. One third of its 2.3 million citizens lived below the poverty line, even as GDP per capita became one of Africa's highest. The election Ali Bongo had just won had been marred with irregularities, and the secretive counting of the results reinforced the impression that the whole thing had been rigged. The international reaction was familiar. The African Union suspended Gabon, just as it had Niger, Mali, Sudan, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. The regional grouping Gabon was a part of — the Economic Community of Central African States — followed suit. Outside the continent, France, the EU, the US, and the UK all condemned the takeover. China called for a peaceful resolution. Yet none of it seemed to make any difference. Coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema declared himself transitional president. A new constitution has been promised, as well as elections and a return to civilian rule within two years. Whether any of that will happen is another matter. General Nguema is a distant cousin of Ali Bongo and hails from the family's stronghold of Haut-Ogooué province. Already, there are signs that the coup will simply wind up extending the rule of the same, discredited elite.\n\n## The French Connection: Colonial Legacies and Neo-Colonial Influence\n\nAcross most decades of recent history, coups in Africa were a fact of life. According to political scientists Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne, from 1950 to January 2022, there were 486 coup attempts worldwide, with about half — 242 — being successful. Of these, a full 106 took place in Africa, the most of any continent. Even coup-prone Latin America only racked up 70 in the same timeframe. Yet, as the 21st century got underway, things began to change. Across the 2000s and 2010s, forced transfers of power began to trend downward in Africa. While they never fully vanished, they hit a low over a decade ago, to the point that those that did happen really were big, unexpected news stories. But in recent years, the downward trend has sharply reversed. Since 2017, Africa has seen 17 successful military coups, while the rest of the world has seen only one: Myanmar in 2021. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres remarked in 2021: \"Military coups are back.\" This resurgence is not affecting the entire continent, but a specific part — one joined together by history and language as well as geography, characterized by its colonial ties with France. The seven African nations to experience coups this decade — all but one of them, Sudan, are Francophone countries. Writing before the Gabon takeover, the BBC noted that \"since 1990, a striking 78% of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have occurred in Francophone states.\" That is a staggering number. What is it about the French-speaking parts of the continent that seems to invite these coups? And why are they not affecting the English, Portuguese, or Arabic speaking parts to the same extent? For some observers, the answer lies in France itself. During the Scramble for Africa, there was no such thing as a benign colonial power. While some were worse than others — King Leopold II of Belgium — all were exploitative. The big difference was that, when the colonial era ended, some powers disengaged more fully than others. France in particular seems to have a hard time letting go. Paris continues to engage with many of its former colonies, often maintaining strong economic and military ties. For supporters, this is a sign of the country engaging in mutually beneficial partnerships. For skeptics, it looks more like neo-colonialism. State-backed French companies are often dominant players in resource extraction. In Niger, uranium mines were controlled by Orano. Gilles Yabi wrote for Carnegie Endowment that some of these companies have been accused of improperly dumping waste, leading to long-term environmental and health hazards. Nor do they often employ locals, meaning French expats benefit from the jobs they create. At the same time, the French military has a track record of propping up corrupt, pro-France leaders. When anti-French military juntas took over Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, Paris was up in arms. But when the pro-French General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno unconstitutionally took power in Chad after his father's death, there was barely a peep. The CFA Franc is a currency used in much of West Africa since 1945. Yet, as Deutsche Welle points out, it is controlled by the French treasury, giving Paris huge power over any nation using it. It has only been since 2020 that legislation has existed to end the CFA Franc. Fairly or unfairly, a lot of these coup leaders portray themselves as heading anti-French uprisings. Interestingly, this is not true in Gabon's case — Interim Prime Minister Raymond Ndong Sima told the BBC that Gabon would \"keep its close relationship with France.\" Still, as important as the Francophone aspect of these nations clearly is, it is not the only factor leading to so many coups.\n\n## Economic Collapse and the Erosion of Faith in Democracy\n\nAfter \"I did not have sexual relations with that woman,\" the most-famous phrase associated with Bill Clinton was probably \"it's the economy, stupid.\" What was true for the American presidential campaign of 1992 is doubly true of modern West and Central Africa. In a deep-dive into what was behind all these juntas, Bloomberg identified one primary driver: a set of economies that have recently taken an unholy battering. Looking at sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, GDP per capita peaked back in 2014, an era when successful coups were comparatively rare. It has since fallen more than 10 percent. In the same period, global GDP per capita has risen nearly 15 percent. The reasons are legion. Bloomberg cites an overreliance on commodities, rising borrowing costs, and the continued economic fallout from the pandemic, among other things. African finance ministers are having to make impossible choices between paying the salaries of civil servants, keeping schools and hospitals open, or compensating foreign investors. People are fed up with governments failing to improve conditions. Many parts of the world are facing miserable economic headwinds without all plunging into coups. But what may be making parts of Africa so vulnerable is the behavior of the elites. Speaking to Deutsche Welle, Nigerian analyst Ovigwe Eguegu pointed out how little the rulers of Francophone countries had done to improve their citizens' lives — Ali Bongo hoarding oil wealth, or the president of Guinea, Alpha Condé, who seemed more interested in changing the constitution to remain in power than improving people's lot. As Eguegu told the broadcaster, of ordinary people in these nations: \"For them, the coups are seen as a way to shock the system to see if that could lead to a much better outcome.\" A related problem born of elite corruption is a corresponding slide in faith in democracy. Polls taken across Africa routinely show that most citizens consider democracy the best possible system for their societies. The trouble comes when you get down to how democracy is implemented in any given nation. Guinea's president is not the only leader who won legitimately then gamed the system to ensure he could henceforth never lose. In Cameroon, Paul Biya openly rigs elections. In Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa pulls stunts like redrawing voting districts at the last minute and terrorizing opposition activists. All this serves to discredit democracy in the average citizen's eyes. According to a 2022 poll by pan-African research network Afrobarometer, only 44 percent of Africans say elections enable voters to remove leaders the voters do not want. The deteriorating economic situation is what makes this so combustible. Unlike in previous decades, this time there is little outside help. While foreign aid made up four percent of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP in the 2000s, the IMF thinks it has now fallen to about 2.5 percent. At the same time, the massive Chinese investment that characterized the 2010s has all but evaporated. Beijing lent $28 billion to African nations in 2016. Since 2020, the annual sum has been less than a tenth of that figure. Still, the economic argument is not the entire answer. What is true of Francophone nations in sub-Saharan Africa is often true of anglophone ones, or those speaking Portuguese. Yet the rise of military takeovers seems to be a mostly French-speaking phenomenon.\n\n## The Contagion Effect: How Coups Breed More Coups\n\nWhen talking about coups, many experts dislike the word \"contagion\" because it ignores all the other factors — structural and personal — that factor into any takeover. But it is useful as shorthand. Just as with certain types of crimes, there seems to be a clear link between one coup succeeding and others following. To complete the metaphor, vectors of transmission exist: the coup leaders themselves. What is often skipped over is just how close many of those heading military regimes in different countries are. They have often gone to the same academies, or studied combat under the same French experts, or gone on joint training exercises where they have gotten to know one another. So for a military man in Niger, hearing about a coup in Burkina Faso is not like hearing about a distant event — it is more like hearing that a colleague took a particular career step. Another major factor is whether a given society has already survived one coup attempt. An attempted military takeover can leave a lingering sickness in the body politic, one that makes the afflicted more vulnerable than they would normally be. Political scientist Jonathan Powell has documented how a previous coup — whether successful or not — can increase the chances of the military having another go. As he told Vox: \"If you've had a coup attempt in the last three years, controlling for a bunch of different factors, there are various studies that point to your probability of having a coup in the current year to be something between 25 and 40 percent, which is really, really high.\" To illustrate, consider one of the most famous military takeovers of all: the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. While everyone remembers the successful overthrow of the Allende government, few remember that parts of the military had already had a go. On June 29 that year, tank regiments rolled into the capital and tried to take over La Moneda — the Chilean White House. The attempt was a failure, but it left Allende's government badly weakened. This is important in today's context because the nine successful military putsches in Africa this decade have been accompanied by several failed ones. If Jonathan Powell is correct, that means several West African nations are already at high risk of future takeovers. In the last three years alone, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau, and Central African Republic all fended off coup attempts. That does not mean each of those nations is now fated to a future of generals making solemn late-night statements on TV. But it does suggest there is a heightened risk that Gabon is not the last. France has been selective in its response to coups, cracking down on those perceived as anti-French while turning a blind eye to those that serve its interests. The European Council on Foreign Relations has documented failures by the African Union to enforce its own anti-coup rules since 2008. In Mauritania, Egypt, Chad, and Sudan, the AU effectively went along with forced transfers of power, even as it condemned those in Burkina Faso, Niger, and others. The ECFR's point is that rule enforcement needs to be consistent to deter generals who want to make themselves president. And ECOWAS's failure to act on its ultimatum against Niger's junta was likely a signal to other putschists that they could get away with it. The regional bloc currently looks too weak and divided to stop more coups.\n\n## The Age of Realpolitik: Middle Powers and the End of Western Deterrence\n\nMuch has been written recently about how the age of a unipolar world is over — how the economic might of the combined West has diminished enough to allow the emergence of newer powers. But it is only when examining stories like these that the practical implications become clear. A couple of decades ago, at the peak of American might, the US could reliably use its power to corral the whole world into isolating a new junta. As the ECFR explains, backed by Europe and the African Union, Washington acted as a powerful deterrent to anti-democratic forces. Today, that no longer holds true. There are plenty of newly confident middle-tier powers that are happy to lend a helping hand to military putschists as a way of expanding their influence. Most obvious among these is Russia. After Mali kicked out French forces following its coup, it invited in the Wagner Group to take over security — an invitation that led to a sharp spike in civilian deaths and human rights abuses. While there are question marks over Wagner's future following its attempted insurrection and Prigozhin's assassination, backing juntas can still reap dividends for Moscow. Wagner were heavily involved in resource extraction, controlling things like gold mines. And Putin openly wants to use anti-French sentiments in Africa to turn the continent against the wider West. It is not for nothing that some celebrating Niger's coup were waving Russian flags. But while the Kremlin sees military takeovers as a good way to weaken America and Europe, most other middle powers simply see a good way to make money. Turkey is one such case. Despite being a member of NATO, Ankara has sold its military equipment to post-coup states like Mali and Burkina Faso, and is reportedly exploring tentative cooperation with Niger's junta. Unlike the US, Turkey sells its arms with few-to-no conditions attached — unsurprisingly attractive to military rulers who want to access advanced technology without paying lip service to human rights. Alongside Turkey, Gulf powers are also getting involved in Africa. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are all backing their own horses in Sudan's civil war. The point is not so much the emergence of these newly assertive middle powers, so much as how it makes isolating a regime effectively impossible. Whereas not so long ago the West could force a junta to schedule new elections by cutting off access to weapons or supplies, nowadays that same junta can just get on the phone to Moscow or Ankara. That makes discouraging and punishing coups significantly harder.\n\n## The Next Domino to Fall: Which African Leaders Should Worry Most\n\nThe reasons behind Africa's wave of coups are many, they are complex, and they may not go away any time soon. The question becomes: where might be next? An unpopular leader in a Francophone African country with a weak economy is in a precarious position. While predicting the future is a mug's game, certain leaders should be sleeping a little less easy in their beds. The Financial Times recently published a long, detailed article on this subject. By their reckoning, the leader who should be suffering the worst insomnia is Paul Biya of Cameroon. As Cameroon's former prime minister-turned president, Biya has ruled the mostly Francophone nation since 1975. Now aged 90, he spends most of his time away in Europe and has reportedly tried to arrange for his son to succeed him on his death. As Oxford Economics Africa analyst François Conradie summed it up to the FT: \"He's an unpopular president who's been there for decades.\" Indeed, Biya is said to have sacked many of his military top brass the same day neighboring Gabon's coup was announced. Supposedly this was a planned reshuffle, but it is hard not to see it as a preventative measure. Yet Biya is not the only one who should be worrying. The same FT article also highlighted Chad, Togo, and Republic of the Congo as places that might be extremely prone to military takeovers. In Chad's case, the current leader — Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno — already came to power on the back of a coup after his father's death in 2021. Since then, there has been at least one additional attempt at a military takeover. On top of that, leaders of forces fighting in both Sudan and the Central African Republic are said to be hoping to seize Chad for themselves, meaning Déby is facing multiple potential threats. The Congo and Togo, meanwhile, are both Francophone nations with unpopular longtime leaders, where the public might back a junta seizing power. Further down the list, Senegal is another former French colony that has seen public unrest in recent years. It is not just the Francophone countries that might be vulnerable. Among the former Portuguese colonies, São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea Bissau both recently foiled coup attempts, which may be a harbinger of future instability. Among anglophone nations, The Gambia and Sierra Leone are in the same boat. And while Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea last suffered an attempted coup in 2018 — probably too long ago to still be destabilizing — it is also ruled by an autocrat who has been in place for 44 years and is deeply disliked. These are only places where a military takeover is a possibility, not a certainty. It is entirely possible that Gabon will turn out to be the last African nation to fall to a junta. On the other hand, it is impossible to deny that the era of coups d'état in Africa seems to be returning, coming back into fashion at an alarming rate, even as polls show continued support for democracy. With first Niger and then Gabon in 2023, such juntas seem set to become a recurring feature of the political landscape — men in khaki who seize power and declare themselves ruler at the barrel of a gun. That makes it more important than ever to understand why these coups are happening, and to work toward preventing more governments from falling to military control.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Why have so many African coups occurred in Francophone countries specifically?\n\nSince 1990, a striking 78 percent of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have taken place in French-speaking states. Analysts point to France's continued post-colonial economic and military involvement—state-backed French companies dominating resource extraction, the French treasury controlling the CFA Franc currency used across much of West Africa, and the French military propping up pro-France leaders while looking the other way at others. This neo-colonial dynamic has made coup leaders in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger able to portray their takeovers as anti-French liberation movements that attract public support.\n\n### What economic conditions have made sub-Saharan Africa so vulnerable to coups?\n\nSub-Saharan Africa's GDP per capita peaked in 2014 and has since fallen more than 10 percent, even as global GDP per capita rose nearly 15 percent over the same period. Foreign aid has dropped from about 4 percent of the region's GDP in the 2000s to roughly 2.5 percent, while Chinese lending collapsed from $28 billion in 2016 to less than a tenth of that annually since 2020. This economic deterioration, combined with leaders like Ali Bongo hoarding oil wealth while a third of Gabon's population lived below the poverty line, has turned widespread economic grievance into a driver of public support for military takeovers.\n\n### What is the contagion effect and how does it accelerate further coups?\n\nPolitical scientist Jonathan Powell documented that a coup attempt within the last three years raises the probability of another coup in a given year to between 25 and 40 percent. Many of the coup leaders across Francophone Africa have trained at the same military academies or conducted joint exercises, so they know each other personally. Hearing that a colleague has seized power normalizes the idea rather than making it seem a distant event. Multiple failed coup attempts in Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, and Central African Republic in recent years have left those countries more vulnerable to future takeovers.\n\n### How have Russia, Turkey, and Gulf states enabled coups by replacing Western leverage?\n\nIn a previous era, the combined West could reliably isolate a new junta by cutting off weapons and supplies. Today, Russia's Wagner Group, Turkey, and Gulf powers like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar offer alternatives with no human rights conditions attached. After Mali's coup, French forces were expelled and Wagner moved in to take over security—though at the cost of sharply increased civilian deaths. Turkey has sold military equipment to post-coup states in Mali and Burkina Faso, while Gulf states back competing factions in Sudan. This means an isolated junta can simply phone Moscow or Ankara and get what it needs.\n\n### Which African leaders are considered most vulnerable to coups following Gabon's 2023 takeover?\n\nThe Financial Times identified Cameroon's Paul Biya—who has ruled since 1975, is now 90, and reportedly spends most of his time in Europe—as the leader facing the sharpest risk, noting he is an unpopular president who has been there for decades. Chad's Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who came to power via coup himself, faces ongoing threats from forces fighting in Sudan and the Central African Republic. The Republic of the Congo and Togo, both Francophone nations with longtime unpopular leaders, also ranked high on the vulnerability list, as did São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea Bissau among former Portuguese colonies.\n\n## Related Coverage\n- [Sudan's Forgotten War: Why the World Looks Away](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/sudans-forgotten-war)\n- [Is the 21st Century's Deadliest War about to Restart? And More.](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/is-the-21st-centurys-deadliest-war-about-to-restart-and-more)\n- [South Sudan is on Fire. Here's Why. (And More)](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/south-sudan-is-on-fire-heres-why-and-more)\n- [The Emergence of a New Nation: The Rise of the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen](https://warfronts-prod.fulcrum-labs.workers.dev/conflicts/the-emergence-of-a-new-nation-the-rise-of-the-southern-transitional-council-in-yemen)\n- [Why is America Destroying its Strongest Alliances? And More.](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-is-america-destroying-its-strongest-alliances-and-more)\n\n## Sources\n1. \n2. \n3. \n4. \n5. \n6. \n7. \n8. \n9. \n10. \n11. \n12. \n\n[1]: https://www.dw.com/en/africa-military-coups-former-french-colonies/a-66530922\n[2]: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/9/10/23866908/africa-coup-gabon-niger-mali-burkina-faso\n[3]: https://www.voanews.com/a/gabon-military-junta-frees-ousted-president-creates-transitional-constitutional-council-/7258495.html\n[4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46783600\n[5]: https://www.ft.com/content/90a13db1-bf7d-4694-807a-b489f8a43ef0\n[6]: https://ecfr.eu/article/middle-powers-big-impact-africas-coup-belt-russia-and-the-waning-global-order/\n[7]: https://www.ft.com/content/09e107c5-ea2d-461c-ad21-609aca0729bd\n[8]: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/features/2023-09-12/africa-s-lost-decade-economic-pain-underlies-sub-saharan-coups#xj4y7vzkg\n[9]: https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/08/31/niger-coup-s-outsized-global-impact-pub-90463#France\n[10]: https://theconversation.com/coup-in-gabon-ali-bongo-the-eighth-west-african-leader-to-be-ousted-by-military-in-two-years-212730\n[11]: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/9/1/season-of-putsch-why-have-coups-become-popular-in-africa\n[12]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66406137\n\n" url: https://warfronts.pub/article/why-is-africa-suffering-so-many-coups-analysis.md canonical: https://warfronts.pub/article/why-is-africa-suffering-so-many-coups-analysis datePublished: 2026-03-04 dateModified: 2026-03-04 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://warfronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Warfronts image: "https://media.warfronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/-5n1scH-edA/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 8c27486ba21f24b0b0caaa63463eec8589701255b68f4f2ed2089e8c13f19312 tokens: 7289 summaryUrl: https://warfronts.pub/article/why-is-africa-suffering-so-many-coups-analysis.md.summary.md --- In another era, in another time, it would have been a shock that echoed around the world. On August 30, 2023, military officers appeared on live TV in the oil-rich African nation of Gabon to announce they had overthrown the president in a coup. As one of the continent's richest countries on a GDP per capita basis, the deposal of leader Ali Bongo should have been unthinkable. Had it happened a decade ago, it would have been one of that year's biggest stories. But the world reacted to the coup in Gabon by effectively saying: "Seriously? Another one?" Somehow, the 2020s have become the age of coups in Africa. In the last three years alone, there have been nine successful military takeovers in seven countries. Of all the successful coups worldwide since 2017, only a single one — in Myanmar — has been outside Africa. That begs a serious question: why does Africa seem to be returning to the era of strongmen in military fatigues overthrowing governments on a whim? ## Key Takeaways - Since 2017, Africa has seen 17 successful military coups while the rest of the world has seen only one, Myanmar in 2021. - 78 percent of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa since 1990 have occurred in Francophone states, pointing to French colonial legacy as a key factor. - Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP per capita peaked in 2014 and has since fallen more than 10 percent, while global GDP per capita rose nearly 15 percent in the same period. - Chinese lending to African nations collapsed from $28 billion in 2016 to less than a tenth of that figure annually since 2020. - Political scientist Jonathan Powell found that a coup attempt in the last three years raises the probability of another coup to between 25 and 40 percent. - Russia's Wagner Group, Turkey, and Gulf states are filling the vacuum left by declining Western influence, selling arms and services to post-coup regimes with no human rights conditions. ## Age of Impunity: The Gabon Coup and the Bongo Dynasty's Fall Reversals of fortune rarely come more whiplash-inducing than that suffered by Ali Bongo on August 30, 2023. That day, the results of Gabon's election were finally announced after days of counting. According to official tallies, Bongo had won another term as president — his third since taking office in 2009. Not that the victory party would last long. Barely an hour later, ordinary Gabonese watching TV were treated to a sight that has become depressingly familiar in parts of Africa. A group of officers stood before the camera in fatigues, reading a statement. According to the military men, their nation had been suffering "irresponsible, unforeseeable governance that has resulted in the steady degradation of social cohesion which risks leading the country to chaos. We have decided to defend peace by putting an end to the regime in power." With that, Gabon became the latest in a long line of African states to experience a recent military takeover. Beginning with Mali, seven nations on the continent have suffered coups since 2020 — a list that also includes Sudan, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger. Two of them — Mali and Burkina Faso — even managed to experience multiple takeovers in a single year. Others still — like Guinea Bissau, The Gambia, and São Tomé and Príncipe — were targeted by coup plots that failed. History seemed to be repeating itself in Gabon, almost like all those involved were actors taking the stage in a pre-written play. The Gabonese generals placed their president under house arrest. Just as ousted president Mohamed Bazoum did in Niger, Ali Bongo used social media to ask the world for help. And, just as in Niger, the public seemed to celebrate the military's actions. In the hours after the takeover, the Gabonese capital of Libreville filled with ordinary people cheering the generals on. While Ali Bongo had been in power since 2009, his family had ruled the country for a combined 56 years. Back in 1967, his father Omar Bongo became president, only to abolish the opposition and turn Gabon into a one-party state. Although opposition parties were later reintroduced, Omar had by that time become a deft hand at buying off his nation's elites, using Gabon's vast oil wealth to keep himself in power. When he died in 2009, Ali Bongo took over and carried on ruling in the exact same vein, only now hoarding even more of the country's money. As a result, Gabon wound up being one of those countries that are super-rich on paper but simultaneously shockingly poor. One third of its 2.3 million citizens lived below the poverty line, even as GDP per capita became one of Africa's highest. The election Ali Bongo had just won had been marred with irregularities, and the secretive counting of the results reinforced the impression that the whole thing had been rigged. The international reaction was familiar. The African Union suspended Gabon, just as it had Niger, Mali, Sudan, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. The regional grouping Gabon was a part of — the Economic Community of Central African States — followed suit. Outside the continent, France, the EU, the US, and the UK all condemned the takeover. China called for a peaceful resolution. Yet none of it seemed to make any difference. Coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema declared himself transitional president. A new constitution has been promised, as well as elections and a return to civilian rule within two years. Whether any of that will happen is another matter. General Nguema is a distant cousin of Ali Bongo and hails from the family's stronghold of Haut-Ogooué province. Already, there are signs that the coup will simply wind up extending the rule of the same, discredited elite. ## The French Connection: Colonial Legacies and Neo-Colonial Influence Across most decades of recent history, coups in Africa were a fact of life. According to political scientists Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne, from 1950 to January 2022, there were 486 coup attempts worldwide, with about half — 242 — being successful. Of these, a full 106 took place in Africa, the most of any continent. Even coup-prone Latin America only racked up 70 in the same timeframe. Yet, as the 21st century got underway, things began to change. Across the 2000s and 2010s, forced transfers of power began to trend downward in Africa. While they never fully vanished, they hit a low over a decade ago, to the point that those that did happen really were big, unexpected news stories. But in recent years, the downward trend has sharply reversed. Since 2017, Africa has seen 17 successful military coups, while the rest of the world has seen only one: Myanmar in 2021. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres remarked in 2021: "Military coups are back." This resurgence is not affecting the entire continent, but a specific part — one joined together by history and language as well as geography, characterized by its colonial ties with France. The seven African nations to experience coups this decade — all but one of them, Sudan, are Francophone countries. Writing before the Gabon takeover, the BBC noted that "since 1990, a striking 78% of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have occurred in Francophone states." That is a staggering number. What is it about the French-speaking parts of the continent that seems to invite these coups? And why are they not affecting the English, Portuguese, or Arabic speaking parts to the same extent? For some observers, the answer lies in France itself. During the Scramble for Africa, there was no such thing as a benign colonial power. While some were worse than others — King Leopold II of Belgium — all were exploitative. The big difference was that, when the colonial era ended, some powers disengaged more fully than others. France in particular seems to have a hard time letting go. Paris continues to engage with many of its former colonies, often maintaining strong economic and military ties. For supporters, this is a sign of the country engaging in mutually beneficial partnerships. For skeptics, it looks more like neo-colonialism. State-backed French companies are often dominant players in resource extraction. In Niger, uranium mines were controlled by Orano. Gilles Yabi wrote for Carnegie Endowment that some of these companies have been accused of improperly dumping waste, leading to long-term environmental and health hazards. Nor do they often employ locals, meaning French expats benefit from the jobs they create. At the same time, the French military has a track record of propping up corrupt, pro-France leaders. When anti-French military juntas took over Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, Paris was up in arms. But when the pro-French General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno unconstitutionally took power in Chad after his father's death, there was barely a peep. The CFA Franc is a currency used in much of West Africa since 1945. Yet, as Deutsche Welle points out, it is controlled by the French treasury, giving Paris huge power over any nation using it. It has only been since 2020 that legislation has existed to end the CFA Franc. Fairly or unfairly, a lot of these coup leaders portray themselves as heading anti-French uprisings. Interestingly, this is not true in Gabon's case — Interim Prime Minister Raymond Ndong Sima told the BBC that Gabon would "keep its close relationship with France." Still, as important as the Francophone aspect of these nations clearly is, it is not the only factor leading to so many coups. ## Economic Collapse and the Erosion of Faith in Democracy After "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," the most-famous phrase associated with Bill Clinton was probably "it's the economy, stupid." What was true for the American presidential campaign of 1992 is doubly true of modern West and Central Africa. In a deep-dive into what was behind all these juntas, Bloomberg identified one primary driver: a set of economies that have recently taken an unholy battering. Looking at sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, GDP per capita peaked back in 2014, an era when successful coups were comparatively rare. It has since fallen more than 10 percent. In the same period, global GDP per capita has risen nearly 15 percent. The reasons are legion. Bloomberg cites an overreliance on commodities, rising borrowing costs, and the continued economic fallout from the pandemic, among other things. African finance ministers are having to make impossible choices between paying the salaries of civil servants, keeping schools and hospitals open, or compensating foreign investors. People are fed up with governments failing to improve conditions. Many parts of the world are facing miserable economic headwinds without all plunging into coups. But what may be making parts of Africa so vulnerable is the behavior of the elites. Speaking to Deutsche Welle, Nigerian analyst Ovigwe Eguegu pointed out how little the rulers of Francophone countries had done to improve their citizens' lives — Ali Bongo hoarding oil wealth, or the president of Guinea, Alpha Condé, who seemed more interested in changing the constitution to remain in power than improving people's lot. As Eguegu told the broadcaster, of ordinary people in these nations: "For them, the coups are seen as a way to shock the system to see if that could lead to a much better outcome." A related problem born of elite corruption is a corresponding slide in faith in democracy. Polls taken across Africa routinely show that most citizens consider democracy the best possible system for their societies. The trouble comes when you get down to how democracy is implemented in any given nation. Guinea's president is not the only leader who won legitimately then gamed the system to ensure he could henceforth never lose. In Cameroon, Paul Biya openly rigs elections. In Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa pulls stunts like redrawing voting districts at the last minute and terrorizing opposition activists. All this serves to discredit democracy in the average citizen's eyes. According to a 2022 poll by pan-African research network Afrobarometer, only 44 percent of Africans say elections enable voters to remove leaders the voters do not want. The deteriorating economic situation is what makes this so combustible. Unlike in previous decades, this time there is little outside help. While foreign aid made up four percent of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP in the 2000s, the IMF thinks it has now fallen to about 2.5 percent. At the same time, the massive Chinese investment that characterized the 2010s has all but evaporated. Beijing lent $28 billion to African nations in 2016. Since 2020, the annual sum has been less than a tenth of that figure. Still, the economic argument is not the entire answer. What is true of Francophone nations in sub-Saharan Africa is often true of anglophone ones, or those speaking Portuguese. Yet the rise of military takeovers seems to be a mostly French-speaking phenomenon. ## The Contagion Effect: How Coups Breed More Coups When talking about coups, many experts dislike the word "contagion" because it ignores all the other factors — structural and personal — that factor into any takeover. But it is useful as shorthand. Just as with certain types of crimes, there seems to be a clear link between one coup succeeding and others following. To complete the metaphor, vectors of transmission exist: the coup leaders themselves. What is often skipped over is just how close many of those heading military regimes in different countries are. They have often gone to the same academies, or studied combat under the same French experts, or gone on joint training exercises where they have gotten to know one another. So for a military man in Niger, hearing about a coup in Burkina Faso is not like hearing about a distant event — it is more like hearing that a colleague took a particular career step. Another major factor is whether a given society has already survived one coup attempt. An attempted military takeover can leave a lingering sickness in the body politic, one that makes the afflicted more vulnerable than they would normally be. Political scientist Jonathan Powell has documented how a previous coup — whether successful or not — can increase the chances of the military having another go. As he told Vox: "If you've had a coup attempt in the last three years, controlling for a bunch of different factors, there are various studies that point to your probability of having a coup in the current year to be something between 25 and 40 percent, which is really, really high." To illustrate, consider one of the most famous military takeovers of all: the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. While everyone remembers the successful overthrow of the Allende government, few remember that parts of the military had already had a go. On June 29 that year, tank regiments rolled into the capital and tried to take over La Moneda — the Chilean White House. The attempt was a failure, but it left Allende's government badly weakened. This is important in today's context because the nine successful military putsches in Africa this decade have been accompanied by several failed ones. If Jonathan Powell is correct, that means several West African nations are already at high risk of future takeovers. In the last three years alone, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau, and Central African Republic all fended off coup attempts. That does not mean each of those nations is now fated to a future of generals making solemn late-night statements on TV. But it does suggest there is a heightened risk that Gabon is not the last. France has been selective in its response to coups, cracking down on those perceived as anti-French while turning a blind eye to those that serve its interests. The European Council on Foreign Relations has documented failures by the African Union to enforce its own anti-coup rules since 2008. In Mauritania, Egypt, Chad, and Sudan, the AU effectively went along with forced transfers of power, even as it condemned those in Burkina Faso, Niger, and others. The ECFR's point is that rule enforcement needs to be consistent to deter generals who want to make themselves president. And ECOWAS's failure to act on its ultimatum against Niger's junta was likely a signal to other putschists that they could get away with it. The regional bloc currently looks too weak and divided to stop more coups. ## The Age of Realpolitik: Middle Powers and the End of Western Deterrence Much has been written recently about how the age of a unipolar world is over — how the economic might of the combined West has diminished enough to allow the emergence of newer powers. But it is only when examining stories like these that the practical implications become clear. A couple of decades ago, at the peak of American might, the US could reliably use its power to corral the whole world into isolating a new junta. As the ECFR explains, backed by Europe and the African Union, Washington acted as a powerful deterrent to anti-democratic forces. Today, that no longer holds true. There are plenty of newly confident middle-tier powers that are happy to lend a helping hand to military putschists as a way of expanding their influence. Most obvious among these is Russia. After Mali kicked out French forces following its coup, it invited in the Wagner Group to take over security — an invitation that led to a sharp spike in civilian deaths and human rights abuses. While there are question marks over Wagner's future following its attempted insurrection and Prigozhin's assassination, backing juntas can still reap dividends for Moscow. Wagner were heavily involved in resource extraction, controlling things like gold mines. And Putin openly wants to use anti-French sentiments in Africa to turn the continent against the wider West. It is not for nothing that some celebrating Niger's coup were waving Russian flags. But while the Kremlin sees military takeovers as a good way to weaken America and Europe, most other middle powers simply see a good way to make money. Turkey is one such case. Despite being a member of NATO, Ankara has sold its military equipment to post-coup states like Mali and Burkina Faso, and is reportedly exploring tentative cooperation with Niger's junta. Unlike the US, Turkey sells its arms with few-to-no conditions attached — unsurprisingly attractive to military rulers who want to access advanced technology without paying lip service to human rights. Alongside Turkey, Gulf powers are also getting involved in Africa. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are all backing their own horses in Sudan's civil war. The point is not so much the emergence of these newly assertive middle powers, so much as how it makes isolating a regime effectively impossible. Whereas not so long ago the West could force a junta to schedule new elections by cutting off access to weapons or supplies, nowadays that same junta can just get on the phone to Moscow or Ankara. That makes discouraging and punishing coups significantly harder. ## The Next Domino to Fall: Which African Leaders Should Worry Most The reasons behind Africa's wave of coups are many, they are complex, and they may not go away any time soon. The question becomes: where might be next? An unpopular leader in a Francophone African country with a weak economy is in a precarious position. While predicting the future is a mug's game, certain leaders should be sleeping a little less easy in their beds. The Financial Times recently published a long, detailed article on this subject. By their reckoning, the leader who should be suffering the worst insomnia is Paul Biya of Cameroon. As Cameroon's former prime minister-turned president, Biya has ruled the mostly Francophone nation since 1975. Now aged 90, he spends most of his time away in Europe and has reportedly tried to arrange for his son to succeed him on his death. As Oxford Economics Africa analyst François Conradie summed it up to the FT: "He's an unpopular president who's been there for decades." Indeed, Biya is said to have sacked many of his military top brass the same day neighboring Gabon's coup was announced. Supposedly this was a planned reshuffle, but it is hard not to see it as a preventative measure. Yet Biya is not the only one who should be worrying. The same FT article also highlighted Chad, Togo, and Republic of the Congo as places that might be extremely prone to military takeovers. In Chad's case, the current leader — Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno — already came to power on the back of a coup after his father's death in 2021. Since then, there has been at least one additional attempt at a military takeover. On top of that, leaders of forces fighting in both Sudan and the Central African Republic are said to be hoping to seize Chad for themselves, meaning Déby is facing multiple potential threats. The Congo and Togo, meanwhile, are both Francophone nations with unpopular longtime leaders, where the public might back a junta seizing power. Further down the list, Senegal is another former French colony that has seen public unrest in recent years. It is not just the Francophone countries that might be vulnerable. Among the former Portuguese colonies, São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea Bissau both recently foiled coup attempts, which may be a harbinger of future instability. Among anglophone nations, The Gambia and Sierra Leone are in the same boat. And while Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea last suffered an attempted coup in 2018 — probably too long ago to still be destabilizing — it is also ruled by an autocrat who has been in place for 44 years and is deeply disliked. These are only places where a military takeover is a possibility, not a certainty. It is entirely possible that Gabon will turn out to be the last African nation to fall to a junta. On the other hand, it is impossible to deny that the era of coups d'état in Africa seems to be returning, coming back into fashion at an alarming rate, even as polls show continued support for democracy. With first Niger and then Gabon in 2023, such juntas seem set to become a recurring feature of the political landscape — men in khaki who seize power and declare themselves ruler at the barrel of a gun. That makes it more important than ever to understand why these coups are happening, and to work toward preventing more governments from falling to military control. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Why have so many African coups occurred in Francophone countries specifically? Since 1990, a striking 78 percent of the 27 coups in sub-Saharan Africa have taken place in French-speaking states. Analysts point to France's continued post-colonial economic and military involvement—state-backed French companies dominating resource extraction, the French treasury controlling the CFA Franc currency used across much of West Africa, and the French military propping up pro-France leaders while looking the other way at others. This neo-colonial dynamic has made coup leaders in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger able to portray their takeovers as anti-French liberation movements that attract public support. ### What economic conditions have made sub-Saharan Africa so vulnerable to coups? Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP per capita peaked in 2014 and has since fallen more than 10 percent, even as global GDP per capita rose nearly 15 percent over the same period. Foreign aid has dropped from about 4 percent of the region's GDP in the 2000s to roughly 2.5 percent, while Chinese lending collapsed from $28 billion in 2016 to less than a tenth of that annually since 2020. This economic deterioration, combined with leaders like Ali Bongo hoarding oil wealth while a third of Gabon's population lived below the poverty line, has turned widespread economic grievance into a driver of public support for military takeovers. ### What is the contagion effect and how does it accelerate further coups? Political scientist Jonathan Powell documented that a coup attempt within the last three years raises the probability of another coup in a given year to between 25 and 40 percent. Many of the coup leaders across Francophone Africa have trained at the same military academies or conducted joint exercises, so they know each other personally. Hearing that a colleague has seized power normalizes the idea rather than making it seem a distant event. Multiple failed coup attempts in Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, and Central African Republic in recent years have left those countries more vulnerable to future takeovers. ### How have Russia, Turkey, and Gulf states enabled coups by replacing Western leverage? In a previous era, the combined West could reliably isolate a new junta by cutting off weapons and supplies. Today, Russia's Wagner Group, Turkey, and Gulf powers like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar offer alternatives with no human rights conditions attached. After Mali's coup, French forces were expelled and Wagner moved in to take over security—though at the cost of sharply increased civilian deaths. Turkey has sold military equipment to post-coup states in Mali and Burkina Faso, while Gulf states back competing factions in Sudan. This means an isolated junta can simply phone Moscow or Ankara and get what it needs. ### Which African leaders are considered most vulnerable to coups following Gabon's 2023 takeover? The Financial Times identified Cameroon's Paul Biya—who has ruled since 1975, is now 90, and reportedly spends most of his time in Europe—as the leader facing the sharpest risk, noting he is an unpopular president who has been there for decades. Chad's Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who came to power via coup himself, faces ongoing threats from forces fighting in Sudan and the Central African Republic. The Republic of the Congo and Togo, both Francophone nations with longtime unpopular leaders, also ranked high on the vulnerability list, as did São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea Bissau among former Portuguese colonies. ## Related Coverage - [Sudan's Forgotten War: Why the World Looks Away](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/sudans-forgotten-war) - [Is the 21st Century's Deadliest War about to Restart? And More.](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/is-the-21st-centurys-deadliest-war-about-to-restart-and-more) - [South Sudan is on Fire. Here's Why. (And More)](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/south-sudan-is-on-fire-heres-why-and-more) - [The Emergence of a New Nation: The Rise of the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen](https://warfronts-prod.fulcrum-labs.workers.dev/conflicts/the-emergence-of-a-new-nation-the-rise-of-the-southern-transitional-council-in-yemen) - [Why is America Destroying its Strongest Alliances? And More.](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-is-america-destroying-its-strongest-alliances-and-more) ## Sources 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. [1]: https://www.dw.com/en/africa-military-coups-former-french-colonies/a-66530922 [2]: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/9/10/23866908/africa-coup-gabon-niger-mali-burkina-faso [3]: https://www.voanews.com/a/gabon-military-junta-frees-ousted-president-creates-transitional-constitutional-council-/7258495.html [4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46783600 [5]: https://www.ft.com/content/90a13db1-bf7d-4694-807a-b489f8a43ef0 [6]: https://ecfr.eu/article/middle-powers-big-impact-africas-coup-belt-russia-and-the-waning-global-order/ [7]: https://www.ft.com/content/09e107c5-ea2d-461c-ad21-609aca0729bd [8]: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/features/2023-09-12/africa-s-lost-decade-economic-pain-underlies-sub-saharan-coups#xj4y7vzkg [9]: https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/08/31/niger-coup-s-outsized-global-impact-pub-90463#France [10]: https://theconversation.com/coup-in-gabon-ali-bongo-the-eighth-west-african-leader-to-be-ousted-by-military-in-two-years-212730 [11]: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/9/1/season-of-putsch-why-have-coups-become-popular-in-africa [12]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66406137 <!-- youtube:-5n1scH-edA -->