The recent rise in coups in the continent is a reflection of a declining regional and international willingness to enforce anti-coup norms. It was between 1960 and 2000 when coup d’états were prominent as demonstrated by 82 successful coups translating to an average of four military coups per year. This period was devastating for the continent, contributing to the instability, corruption, human rights abuses, impunity and poverty. However, things changed for the better between 2000 and 2019, as there was a decline in this trend. Some of the reasons for the decline were that this era was characterised by calls for democratic reforms and constitutionalism.
Military coups decreased to an average of two per year till 2019. Since then, the unconstitutional power grabs has made a strong comeback. Between 2020 and 2022 there have been two coups in Mali in a space of 10 months. These were followed by coups in Guinea, Sudan and recently Burkina Faso. This worrisome turn of political events was dubbed by the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres as the, “Africa going through an epidemic of coup d’états”. This statement shows that the continent, thus risks hurtling back to the bad old days of military mis-governance. Some people associate these coups with the surge in the militarisation of politics in the continent. Both the external drivers and internal factors influence this militarisation. The external drivers include the increasing number of diverse international actors who are active in the continent to push their selfish interests such as multinational corporations, mercenaries and military contractors.
