The Rise of Coup: From Guinea to the Whole Africa

On 5 September 2021, the President of Guinea Alpha Condé was captured by the country's armed forces in a coup d'état after gunfire in the capital, Conakry. Special Forces commander Mamady Doumbouya released a broadcast on state television announcing the dissolution of the constitution and government. There are several reasons why the coup takeover would happen. First of all, Alpha Condé used Guinea’s natural resources to improve the economy, but the population of the country doesn’t feel its effects. What’s more, president Condé changed the constitution in 2020 to secure the third term of his presidency which cause severe protests against him. Last but not the least, president Condé tried to balance the budget of the country in August 2021 by tax hikes, slashed spending on the police and the military, and increased funding for the office of the President and National Assembly.

The broke-out of the coup in Guinea is not only a problem of Guinea but also reflecting similar problems in other African countries. The study led by two US researchers, Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne, has identified over 200 such attempts in Africa since the late 1950s.

The overall number of coup attempts in Africa remained remarkably consistent at an average of around four a year in the four decades between 1960 and 2000. Jonathan Powell says this is not surprising given the instability African countries experienced in the years after independence. The number of coups did drop a lot in the past two years, but it's worth noting that so far this year, there's been a noticeably higher than average number of coups compared with the previous two decades which is Niger, Chad, Mali, and Guinea. So what caused the coup to make a comeback in Africa?

The research network Afrobarometer conducted surveys across 19 African countries which showed 6 in 10 respondents saying corruption is increasing in their country (the figure was 63% in Guinea) while 2 in 3 say their governments are doing a poor job fighting it. Furthermore, 72% believe ordinary citizens "risk retaliation or other negative consequences" if they report corruption to authorities, a sign Africans believe their public institutions are not just partakers in, but active defenders of, corrupt systems.

When speaking of poverty, One in three people is now unemployed in Nigeria, West Africa's largest economy. The same goes for South Africa, the most industrialized African nation. It is now estimated the number of extremely poor people in sub-Saharan Africa has crossed the 500 million mark, half the population.

Another important reason is that Africans are losing their belief in the presidential elections. Surveys conducted across 19 African countries in 2019/20 showed just 4 in 10 respondents (42%) now believe elections work well to ensure "MPs reflect voters' views" and to "enable voters to remove non-performing leaders."

In other words, more than half the population believes that the candidates are lack representativeness and accountability.

From above it is clear that young Africans are losing faith in their corruptive government, poor economy, and unreliable presidential candidates. They then welcome coup to bring some “radical changes” However, just like comments from Joseph Sany that “The initial reaction of what you see on the streets will be of joy, but very soon, people will be demanding action... and I'm not sure the military will be able to deliver on the expectations, basic service delivery, more freedoms.”

Resource link:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/12/africa/africa-coups-resurgence-intl-cmd/index.html

https://guardian.ng/news/unemployment-rises-to-33-3-per-cent/

https://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ad425-support_for_elections_weakens_in_africa-afrobarometer_dispatch-7feb21.pdf

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46783600