Coups make a comeback in Africa

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Coups make a comeback in Africa’

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is about military coups in Africa. My guest is Comfort Ero, president of the International Crisis Group, one of the world’s leading think-tanks, which tracks conflicts around the world. So why are the men in uniform making a comeback in African politics?

News clip
This day, July 23rd 2023. We, the defence and security forces meeting within the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, have decided to put an end to the regime you know. This follows the continuing deterioration of the security situation and poor economic and social governance.

Gideon Rachman
That was the announcement of a coup in Niger last July. The colonel making the announcement was flanked by uniformed colleagues. He cited a deterioration in the security situation and in the economy as justification for the overthrow of President Mohamed Bazoum. And this was not an isolated incident. Over the last three years, there have been coups in Gabon, Mali, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea and Chad. Confidence that democracy is the wave of the future in Africa is in sharp decline, and many people are now waiting for the next coup announcement. So what’s driving it all? That was the question that I posed to Comfort Ero.

Comfort Ero
Generally speaking, I think there may be three or four categories in terms of what’s driving them, but there’s a crisis of legitimacy — the assumption that elections guarantees you that legitimacy is increasingly become a fallacy in a number of these places and here I think Gabon, Guinea speak to that problem where sort of a generation of leaders are no longer seen as credible and elections is not enough to guarantee that as well.

I think the second area, and I would put Burkina and Mali into this camp, is that attempts to deal with jihadists. Failure to do that is causing frustration both within the military who are often blamed for the failures of this, particularly in Burkina, but also civilians who are in the crossfire. The government response was to create all these volunteer defence forces where they felt the military wasn’t capable of doing that.

And I think the third category is around misuse of resources and issues around corruption, abuse of power. I haven’t put Niger into this category because for me it still sort of sits outside of that, which is your classic issue of when you’re trying to reform security sector, there’s agitation because there’s an understanding between the leadership, both civilian and military, that we’ve got a pact together. (Laughter) You know, we’ve come in together, we’ve reinforced you presidential guards and you’re seeking to retire us and there’s question about access to largesse and things like that. So that’s also the tale of Niger.

And I think overall it’s an issue where the elite, the old guard, those who don’t necessarily represent their citizens, are very much stuck in the capital. Some of them have very strong relationships to western capitals or elsewhere who don’t necessarily have any relationship with their civilian population. I think the urban youth particularly are frustrated by this leadership. They’re not necessarily pro the military, but they’re very much anti the type of regime or governments that are sitting at the centre.

Gideon Rachman
And what’s the kind of social and economic backdrop to this? I mean, is a kind of poverty, desperation, climate change, etc, driving all this? In other words, are people getting demonstrably worse off or is it just general dissatisfaction of the sort you describe?

Comfort Ero
Look, there is general dissatisfaction overlaid this. Let’s not forget that we are also coming out of a context of the pandemic and the economic pressures of that. In a sense there’s a kind of a whammy of problems. It’s the pandemic, it’s the fallout from Ukraine and the economic pressures.

Gideon Rachman
What — high energy, food prices?

Comfort Ero
And they were facing that before, but it’s a layer of issues and that reached boiling point. And in a situation like Mali, the glaring corruption there and it was also cited by a number of the protesters as well. And they also saw the way in which President Ibrahim Keita tried to undermine the legislative assembly results. And then in reaction to that, there was also dissatisfaction within the military about the performance of the government in the midst of jihadi fighting and no change in basic livelihoods, no change in people’s circumstances and more and more of the same pressure boiling away. And the army, naturally, one of the key institutions in a number of these countries, it seems familiar to what we saw in the 1970s. After independence, a lot of these leaders came in, champions of independence, weren’t satisfying their populations, and the military tends to be the one that comes in, puts a pause on these things, tries to, you know, say, we’re coming in to defend democracy and rule of law. And oftentimes they become part of the problem.

Gideon Rachman
Seen from the west, so a lot of the commentary in the west has focused on the kind of external situation, particularly the decline of French influence that a lot of these places were former French colonies, places where France remained a big presence. And there does seem to have been a kind of “fed-upness” with France and a feeling that French aid had not got them anywhere. How big a driver is that and how big a blow is it to that French position in Africa?

Comfort Ero
I think what binds all of these countries together, except for Sudan and a few years ago, Zimbabwe, take those two out of it. Yes, there is something here about maybe this is the beginning of the end of French influence in Africa. I don’t think we should dismiss the internal problems in these countries because there are a number of countries when we look across the continent who have the same trademark problems that I’ve just outlined in the Sahel region. There are a number of countries that are in the spotlight and they’re not French-speaking. They’re anglophone. So I think that we shouldn’t assume . . . 

Gideon Rachman
Anglophone crowing might be a little bit premature.

Comfort Ero
Yes. Yeah, I’d be very careful and I think for those of us who have been paying close attention to various regions, west Africa has always sort of stood above the rest in terms of that movement to democratisation, ebbs and flows and all sorts of problems with it. But it was always the steadier of all the regions as well. And there are a number of anglophone countries in there. So I’m simply saying we shouldn’t assume that this is specific to francophone Africa, but there is something quite worrying where we’ve seen eight years of heavy-handed militarisation of a number of problems which are about politics and governance. And France was seen as sort of a driver of that military response, leading the European Union and with others pushing for a UN mission. I think it’s worth acknowledging, however, that if it hadn’t been for France with the support of Chad back in 2013, that column that was moving from northern Mali down into Mopti could have advanced into Bamako. So I don’t think we should (inaudible) the capital of Bamako.

Gideon Rachman
That column was a jihadi column.

Comfort Ero
Yes, so I don’t think we should overlook what France did. And there is a case for saying that the security-first approach was important. This was a country that was under a lot of pressure. One of the sort of fallouts from Libya was just the rise of (inaudible) jihadi groups, fighters coming into Mali. You can ask why it didn’t happen in Niger and Burkina initially and why it was Mali. But France was crucial in stemming the tide of what could have been a potential run on the country by various forces. So let’s credit France for what they did. But after that, I think things started to go in the wrong direction. There was too much focus on a military approach and not enough on the politics and the primacy of politics and trying to make sure that Bamako was working towards a peace agreement, not relying on the UN somehow to both provide the military and the basic services. The assumption also that the military was trainable, that you could use military training to right all the wrongs of Mali and that it could somehow be a magic bullet to fix . . . 

Gideon Rachman
Reminds me a bit of Afghanistan actually where . . . 

Comfort Ero
Yeah, and there’s the same, you use the same prescriptions, the same ingredients to think that you can fix these problems, and it really requires a more intimate engagement with the politics of the country. Some of that’s very local, and you can’t do that as outsiders. I think, again, this is about the limits of intervention, getting to grips with the politics, with the governance, with dealing with the corruption, with dealing with the resources. You’re also asking leaders not interested in the world outside their capitals to think differently. And no amount of military assistance, no amount of aid coming outside the country is going to reverse those basic fundamental hard work that you have to do, which is really about just politics and governance.

Gideon Rachman
And getting them to think differently means specifically what?

Comfort Ero
Well, it’s about access to resource. It’s also about scrutiny around corruption. A lot of money and leakages in these countries. You don’t deal with that expenditure, you don’t deal with how revenue is allocated in the country. You’ve got urban youth who don’t see a change in their livelihoods. They graduate with nothing. Unemployment is high. They see all these leaders. They’ve dislodged other leadership. They claim that they’re different and they haven’t changed the circumstances of people. So you find that people have limited choices. You either go into criminality, you get caught up in the migration extortion, the smuggling as well. You get caught up in other kind of illicit activities because the formal sector doesn’t give you anything and because the resources of the country are still captured in the very small elite who apparently came into power to reverse all of those trendlines. And these are very young countries. I mean, Niger, for example, the demography in Niger is tilting more and more to young people.

Gideon Rachman
They’ve got the highest birth rate in the world.

Comfort Ero
Highest birth rate, youngest population. And they’re watching this old guard that has been at the heart of governance for 50-odd years. And they’re not seeing any difference in their parents’ generation to their generation. I mean, I always remind myself that the time in which I was studying, I was coming out of first degree and things like that. In ’94, we had the coup in Gambia. I was told that I was part of a new generation. And then you saw the coup happening there and it’s a repeating trend.

Gideon Rachman
And it doesn’t sound like you think this cycle’s gonna change anytime soon.

Comfort Ero
It’s not. And I have to say, it’s quite alarming that we thought we had gotten rid of coups on the continent. And then since 2020, August 2020, two coups in Mali, two coups in Burkina, you saw the one in Guinea, Chad, and then you saw what we thought was a vibrant revolution in Sudan, 2019 completely turned on its head. And then Gabon. And then Niger.

To be fair, we thought President Bazoum was on the right track. He was dealing with things that even we pushed for. I speak into what people call the bad guys, jihadist history and political dialogue, trying to deal with resource issues, trying to deal with the insecurity issues. But there was always that contest between himself and the military. And don’t forget, there was an attempted coup in 2021.

So it raises a number of questions about what next for Niger, but also what next for democratisation in west Africa, in the Sahel specifically, and what this means also for the future of international engagement in these countries as well.

Gideon Rachman
I mean, you mentioned international engagement. We talked a bit about the decline in French influence. There’s again, a lot of commentary about the rise in Russian influence and particularly Wagner. Are a lot of these new coup-backed governments or governments that have arrived as a result of the coup to put it bluntly, working with Russia?

Comfort Ero
No, I don’t think we should overstate Russian presence on the continent. We’ve seen mixed fortunes for Russia. So we saw hasty departure, for example, of the mercenary group Wagner from Mozambique. But we’ve seen how Russia’s gained a foothold in the Central African Republic and Mali, underwriting the security, for example, around the president of Central African Republic as well. We also see the hand of Russian disinformation. But I don’t think that Russia offers an alternative security umbrella. I don’t think it necessarily has that capacity.

It’s also interesting that when you speak to the Malian authorities, two things are clear. One, a number of people thought Mali would collapse under the weight of French departure and then Russian incapacity. The Malians would be very quick to say that we didn’t collapse, that much of the success in pushing back the jihadis wasn’t because of the Russians, but it was because of us. Although we’re watching now carefully what’s happening in the north of the country.

I will say this about France. At the same time, while, yes, they have withdrawn in Mali and now they’ve withdrawn their ambassador from Niger and have announced that they will withdraw their troops from Niger at the end of the year, there are still a number of French bases across the continent. So Dakar, Abidjan, we’re keeping an eye on, and Gabon. And aside from those three, you’ve got Djibouti. So I think France itself is nervous, is wondering about its future posture on the continent. Will it completely retreat from those bases? We don’t know. But it’s very clear that its presence is contentious.

But I don’t think that Russia becomes the alternative. There certainly will be a rethinking of the kind of partnerships. And the most interesting partnership, Gideon, is between the countries themselves. So the three Sahelian countries announced their own version of the Sahel Alliance, both to deal with jihadi forces, but also should Ecowas, the regional body, decide to intervene.

The interesting thing about this, Gideon, is that the one thing that this crisis group has called for, and I borrow a phrase that we’ve used here in the context of Brexit, is take back control, take control of your sovereignty, take control of your future. I would also just be careful about what emerges in terms of the defence pact between these three countries. The questions about the fact that you’ve got these three military regimes that could solidify themselves and therefore undermine the prospects for a return to civilian rule and transition, and that has to be the outcome.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned this pact between them and the threat that Ecowas might intervene, which is talked about very, very openly. Was there, is there a prospect that the rest of west Africa, led, I guess, by Nigeria, would come in and try to take on these new coup-backed governments? And even if they don’t, do we have a region that’s now sort of fundamentally split between the old guard where coups haven’t happened and these new coup countries?

Comfort Ero
Yeah. And I think it’s worth reminding ourselves that this is not the west Africa of 20 years ago where Nigeria reigned supreme and controlled its backyard. That west Africa’s gone. And I think Nigeria has for several years been punching below its weight and doesn’t necessarily have the same leverage that it used to have. I mean, the idea that Niger-neighbouring country with very strong affinities to Nigeria would stand down Abuja in this way tells you how things have changed. And you know, Ecowas is also not that robust region that a number of us championed 20 years ago and was again seen as the poster child of regional peace and security, very much emulated across the continent, particularly the African Union.

So a lot’s changed and Nigeria is not the leader it was. And I also think that there are regions within the region. So you’ve got the official Ecowas, but the body really hasn’t had much influence in terms of peace and security in the Sahel. That’s been navigated both by countries that are close to the Sahel. Algeria has a view, a strong view of what peace and security ought to look like in the region. The Sahel is also an international issue. Determining its future has also been outside of the classic west Africa so very much been decided by Europe, by France, particularly by the UN. And Ecowas, particularly Nigeria, finds itself flat-footed. It was right for President Tinubu to condemn the coup. That’s what we expect from Ecowas.

Premature to announce that you could intervene in Tunisia and particularly for Nigeria also, that has very strong ethnic affinities, the houses of the north, very close to Niger. So, you know, it wasn’t then a surprise for us that we saw elements of northern leadership in Nigeria, particularly some in the senate saying that they would oppose the idea of an intervention force. And, you know, this will spell an economic disaster.

Gideon Rachman
You must be quite relieved there wasn’t an intervention. I mean it doesn’t (inaudible) . . . 

Comfort Ero
Yeah, but it’s also not the answer. Let’s separate it from the condemnation and also the sanctions. I mean, at least understand what provoked the coup and also understand why it’s now Mali, Niger and Burkina are under these coups as well.

Gideon Rachman
Why is Nigerian influence so weak? You know, it’s so much the giant of, well, a continent, but certainly of the region. It’s got a lot of wealth. Why is it not able to exert influence the way one might expect?

Comfort Ero
I mean, look, this is also a Nigeria that is facing multiple challenges and the north-east has been fighting its own insurgency, the Boko Haram that spilled over into the region. It was Chad who told Nigeria and Ecowas, step up. We’re the ones who have to intervene into your backyard and Mali to fix your problem. So since Obasanjo stepped down from power, successive leaders haven’t shown the same weight and heft that he has had. And it’s not a surprise because all of this coincided with economic woes, insecurity right across Nigeria’s states as well. And despite the fact that Nigeria didn’t want to bring the African Union into play or internationalise it, bring in the UN, the fact is it couldn’t resolve its own problems and it couldn’t respond to what was happening regionally. And as a result, other would-be pretenders rose to see if they could change things. Senegal being one of those, and Ivory Coast as well.

But let’s also remember, 2017, it was Nigeria who sort of provided cover for Senegal to sort out what happened in Gambia. So let’s see. Certainly, Nigeria has been punching below its weight, but as we’ve seen across the world, there are middle powers rising where those major powers are not able to fill the vacuum or have the same heft if they did. And Algeria is watching. It will enter the Security Council in January as one of the non-permanent members. And it has a clear view. It’s concerned that it appears that Ecowas has become a stooge of France. So you’ve got west Africa sandwiched now between Nigeria and Algeria. And Algeria has a view of what peace and security should look like, at least in the Sahelian part of west Africa.

Gideon Rachman
I mean, you mentioned that the French are scratching their heads about what their future role might be. And it occurred to me that the failure in Mali could be part of a, you know, whole pattern of western failures. I mentioned Afghanistan earlier, where you go in, you try to stabilise, it fails, you pull out. And that pattern tends to be followed by people trying to forget about it, wash their hands of it. But I assume that at a time when Europe is in convulsions about migration, particularly across the Mediterranean, they would find very quickly, they already are finding that they can’t leave this region to fester because that must be driving — migration’s one issue, but a whole bunch of other security issues as well.

Comfort Ero
Yeah, and it goes back to 2015 at the height of the migration crisis. And even then we at Crisis Group and others were raising the alarm with the idea that Europe thinks that it could outsource its security management to regions that can’t manage their own borders. And these are regions that got long, porous borders. The idea that you would set up an asylum base or various outposts, whether it’s in Niger or even in Burkina, even in Eritrea, (laughter) and assume that you could manage the flow of migration northwards from these countries that didn’t have the capacity and that you were using various militia forces to curb the migration routes. Although, Gideon, I think it’s also worth noting that not all the refugee flows are northwards into Europe. There’s a big refugee flow that stays within the regions. A lot of them go into Nigeria, go into Chad, going into the horn and into the Gulf region as well.

But the point is that no matter which way it squares it, it’s very true that Europe also needs to rethink its Africa policy, but also its Sahelian policy. What has been difficult for Europe is that France has been the primary leader. Paris has taken a very hardline approach, particularly vis-à-vis Niger, insisting on the reinstatement of President Bazoum. I think a number of other European countries are saying we don’t see the return to the status quo as possible, even if we also agree that there has to be a restatement of civilian authority. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a return to Bazoum. We’ve got to find a way in which to talk to the junta in Niger so that we begin the process to transition as well.

And I think right now there is that balancing act in a situation where France has often been the driver, the shaper, the influencer of how Europe positions itself. And I think this is going to be a moment where they have to sort of sit down and rethink their position. And there are a number of other western governments that I think have tried to focus on governance, focus on development alongside the European training mission, the EUTM that has sort of been there and alongside other counter-terrorism factors. And then you’ve got the United States which hasn’t called out a coup because it wants to sort of leave space in the hope that there can be some kind of transition to civilian government. I think this is a time for reflection by a number of western governments, starting with France, in terms of how they navigate the future on the continent.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, and I guess that, you know, if you think of how western governments are thinking about this, this is a huge and complex, difficult crisis, but it’s just one part of the world and they’re trying to juggle all these other issues. And I guess you’re in a sort of similar position because, you know, you used to be primarily an African specialist, being president of the Crisis Group for two years now. Just to finish, tell me, as you surveyed the whole plethora of crises that you’re trying to make sense of, how do you see the world, really? What are your priorities?

Comfort Ero
It’s interesting because what struck me in the last six months, in the 18 months that I’ve been in this position, is that there is a sort of a new generation of conflicts, especially since the Arab Spring. And we talked about this myself and Richard Atwood, our executive vice-president. And we use the lens of Sudan to say, look, there’s a rise of new generation of conflicts that we need to sort of start paying attention to and the combination of protest, anti-French sentiments, questions about democracy, questions about the type of state that has been built. But not only that, the actors who are involved in navigating those crises. It’s no longer the United States that’s trying to shape this but you’ve got other middle powers, such as the Gulf countries, for example, Saudi Arabia in Sudan, trying to navigate that crisis as well.

But it’s also a reminder to us that we don’t have the luxury of just focusing on one conflict. We’re seeing a number of sort of humanitarian crises, and I think the coups in Africa are sort of a microcosm of the bigger challenges we face across several frontiers. You know, the answer to reversing the crisis in these countries cannot be left to a military solution, that you have to do the hard graft of thinking through the future of these countries. And it comes back just to the simple issues around governance and people’s livelihoods.

And I think increasingly we’re seeing young people who are contesting leadership. I learned with this, Gideon, in the midst of these coups, I was struck by a new survey that came out — Afrobarometer and you know the Open Society as well as I do. This says that it’s not that people are anti-democracy, they’re pro-democracy, but it’s not democracy by the ballot box. It’s democracy that deals with inequality and injustice and livelihoods. There’s basic fundamentals. And in every conflict that we’re watching, we’re watching that landscape go back to the fundamentals, that I can’t eat my political and civil rights. What I need is bread and butter. And the old solutions are not going to fix those problems. We need to rethink and go back to the toolbox of resolution and mitigation to think about how we address these issues.

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Gideon Rachman
That was Comfort Ero, president of the International Crisis Group, ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Please join me again next week.

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