Africa’s appetite for coups grows as military leaders strengthen their grip

18 Jul 2025 | Africa, Burkina Faso, Chad, DR Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, News and features, Niger, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan, Togo

The 2020s have been a busy time for military coups in Africa. 

University of Kentucky political scientists Jonathan Powell, who specialises in the study of political instability, and Professor Clayton Thyne, whose research focuses on domestic conflict and coups d’état, said there were 13 attempted coups in Africa in the years 2021 to 2023.

Powell says eight of those coups succeeded – in Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan in 2021, two separate coups in Burkina Faso in 2022, one on 23 January of that year and another on 30 September, and in Niger and Gabon in 2023..

The remaining five coups failed: in Niger and Sudan in 2021, in Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe in 2022 and in Sudan in 2023. In the latter, the military rulers who had seized power in 2021 continued to run the war-torn country.

Where the military have been successful in taking control, the army generals leading the coups have since shown no appetite for a return to civilian rule despite promising to do so when they took control..

Two of the coup leaders – Chad’s military leader Mahamat Idriss Déby, who seized power in 2021,and Gabon’s General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema who masterminded a coup in 2023 – have since held disputed elections in an attempt to give their rule a measure of legitimacy. In May 2024, Déby swept the presidential polls with more than 60% of the vote while Nguema won with 90% of the vote in April this year.

The effects of these coups have been devastating: brutal repression marked by arbitrary detentions, torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings to stifle political dissent.

There has also been corruption, erosion of free speech and strained relations with neighbouring countries or former colonial powers in some instances.

Promises to restore security, revitalise the economy or champion the will of the people that were invariably given as a motivation to seize power have been substituted by measures to entrench the rule of the military dictatorships.

Powell said the wave of coups have a common thread, a reluctance to relinquish power and erosion of rights such as free speech.

“The big takeaway is that previously coup leaders or the armed forces typically retreated from power, and often very quickly. This has radically shifted since 2021. Since then, all coups have seen the coup leaders remain in power,” he told Index.

“The coups since 2021 occurred within varying contexts, but major commonalities are other forms of domestic instability, civil war, violence, political manipulation and governments’ loss of legitimacy in the eyes of their people even with [previously] elected leaders “

In those countries where coups have seen the de facto establishment of military rule, freedoms in general are suffering, with journalists and media freedom in particular coming under attack. 

“We have seen the arbitrary arrest of journalists in different countries, while Mali’s junta has attempted to virtually ban political coverage altogether,” Powell added.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Gabon offer a study in how military rulers are corrupted by power, becoming worse or more brutal than the regimes they overthrew.

Mali’s transitional military government, which seized power in May 2021, announced that scheduled elections would be delayed indefinitely for technical reasons.

The military government also suspended political parties, a development the human rights watchdog said violates both Malian law and the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly under international human rights law.

Human Rights Watch also said that Mali’s council of ministers has adopted a decree directing all media to stop “broadcasting and publishing the activities” of political parties and associations. 

In the case of Burkina Faso, coup leader Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damaogo Damiba became interim president in January 2022 but was ousted by Captain Ibrahim Traoré in a subsequent coup nine months later.

Traoré pledged to restore the civilian government by 1 July 2024 but last year he extended the transition period by another five years, adding that he would be eligible to contest the elections.

In Gabon, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the country is on track to swap one form of autocratic governance with another. The military regime of Brigadier General Brice Oligui Nguema, who seized power in a coup on 30 August 2023, has instituted a “sequence of actions to pave an unobstructed pathway to claim the presidency” in upcoming elections.

This includes appointing loyalists to two-thirds of the Senate and National Assembly, appointing all nine members of the Constitutional Court, hosting a tightly scripted national dialogue process in mid-2024, from which 200 political parties were banned and rewriting of the constitution to allow members of the military to contest political office, and extend presidential terms to seven years.

An activist from Niger, Dr Mayra Djibrine, told Index that since the July 2023 coup in her country led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, there has been a rise in arbitrary arrests and detentions of political opponents, activists, and journalists.

Djibrine said while military leaders may justify coups as necessary measures to restore order or combat corruption, history has shown that military governance often leads to prolonged instability. 

She said the military leaders in Niger have announced their intentions to transition to civilian rule but have not specified a concrete timeline for elections but given the uncertainty and historical precedents in the region, skepticism remains about how soon Niger will revert to a stable civilian government.

“The military regime has imposed restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, accompanied by heightened surveillance and censorship of media outlets critical of the government. Additionally, ongoing insecurity due to extremist violence in certain regions has further complicated the human rights landscape. Humanitarian access has also been limited in some areas, worsening the plight of those in need,” said Djibrine.

“Freedom of speech in Niger is facing significant challenges in the wake of the coup. While there was some degree of media freedom prior to the coup, the current military government has implemented measures that stifle dissent and control public discourse. Journalists are often subjected to intimidation, harassment, and detention for reporting critically on the regime. Access to independent media has been increasingly limited, and public protests against the government are met with a strong repressive response. This environment has led to self-censorship, diminishing the space for open dialogue and critical expression.”

She said to prevent coups throughout Africa, several approaches could be considered that include building robust democratic institutions that ensure citizen representation and accountability can help reduce discontent and the likelihood of military takeovers. 

She said this involves not only conducting credible elections but also promoting transparency within the government.

She said there is also a need to strengthen the role of civil society organisations to enhance public engagement and create mechanisms for citizens to collaboratively voice their concerns, thus reducing disillusionment with political systems.

“Reforming security forces to ensure they operate under civilian authority and focus on national defense rather than political ambitions is crucial. Prioritising military professionalism is essential for building trust between civilians and the armed forces,” she said.

In July 2023, as the world was witnessing an uptick in coups in African countries, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released a report titled Soldiers and Citizens: Military Coups and the Need for Democratic Renewal in Africa as part of its partnership with the African Union Commission which offered insights into what fuels coups in Africa.

The report said readily exploitable grievances, linked to African leaders’ failures to deliver inclusive development as they rule behind a façade of democracy while deploying innately exclusionary models of governance has created fertile ground for coups to be staged on the continent.

It said there is a correlation between heightened coup risk and stagnant growth, exclusionary economic governance, multidimensional poverty, inequality, reduced youth and women’s participation, governance deficits, among others.

The findings confirm that coup risk can be viewed as a subset of state fragility. Countries that experience contemporary coups perform poorly on global development indices. These rankings are not abstract, but represent millions of lives marred by exclusion, infringement of rights, restriction of opportunity and frustration. These grievances create a base of frustration that coup leaders can readily exploit,” the report said.

Nick Watts, the vice president of EuroDefence UK told Index that the countries affected by coups have been courted by China and Russia who are playing on anti-colonial sentiment.

He said a Russian proxy, the Wagner Group, has been providing the means of removing governments deemed too close to their former colonial masters.

Watts said Wagner has continued operating in the region even after the death of its former powerful leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

He offered an explanation on why these coups have taken place.

“The regimes have been seen as out of touch, which has played into the hands of ‘liberation’ movements,” he said.

The desire for power in Africa has not diminished. 

In May 2024, a failed coup took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while other African dictators, such as Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé who ruled the country from 2005 after he was installed by the army when his autocratic father Gnassingbé Eyadéma died, changed the constitution to prolong his rule. Gnassingbé, whose family has ruled the country for nearly six decades, was sworn into a new post of President of the Council of Ministers which has no official term limits, a move which sparked deadly protests.

While the 2020s have been a particularly fertile period for coups in Africa, it continues a historical precedent. The UNDP report says there have been 98 coups in Africa between 1952 and 2022, more than one a year.

The report’s authors said that to mitigate coup risk, African governments must strive to deliver better governance, deepen democracy and inclusive development.

It called on regional and international actors to engage proactively with countries where presidents are nearing the end of their term limits to secure public assurances that they will resign and allow for a peaceful transfer of power. History tells us that Africa’s military leaders are unlikely to listen.