The two decades up to 2020 saw fewer coups and attempted coups in Africa than at any time since independence, raising hopes of a new, stable continent. Yet there have been at least 10 coups in West Africa and the Sahel since then. Whether this is a temporary blip or a long-term trend remains to be seen, but it will depend on how illegitimate changes of government are dealt with, how quickly countries return to civilian rule and the reaction of the wider international community.
The duration of this uptick in political instability will also be driven by the persistence of the underlying causes, but sadly, many of these appear here to stay. The “coup belt” across the Sahel and Sudan was already one of the poorest regions in the world, with a combination of weak economic growth, widespread poverty and corruption among the political elite undermining trust in democratic institutions.
Climate change has exacerbated existing tensions, with Sahelian temperatures rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, fuelling rural poverty and tensions between pastoralists and settled farmers. Environmental and economic challenges have inflated ethnic and regional antagonisms, with some Tuareg groups fighting to create an independent Azawad state, covering about 900,000 km² and two million people in northern Mali, or an area bigger than Turkey.
Islamist groups have poured into the region to exploit this unstable cocktail, with fighters displaced from Syria and Iraq challenging the governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Islamic State Sahel Province and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, an umbrella group of al-Qaeda factions, are fighting both national armies and each other, sometimes in coordination with Tuareg forces.
The strain that these conflicts have created in already struggling countries has made civilian governments appear incapable, triggering coups in Mali in 2020 and again in 2021, Burkina Faso twice in 2022 and Niger in 2023. In each case, military leaders argued that the civilian governments had become corrupt, ineffective and incapable of managing insecurity.
The situation in Sudan contains some of the same ingredients, with armed conflict exacerbating the impact of climate change and deep-seated poverty. The military took power in 2021, claiming that political instability justified intervention during a fragile democratic transition. Gabon’s 2023 coup followed a disputed election and widespread public frustration with more than five decades of rule by Omar Bongo and then his son Ali.
Chad’s 2021 coup was slightly different, with Idriss Déby Itno seizing power in April that year following the death of his father, Idriss Déby, after 31 years in power. Guinea’s most recent military coup occurred in September 2021, when several hundred elite soldiers led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya overthrew elected President Alpha Condé, dissolved the government, and annulled the constitution.
Most recently, the army of Guinea-Bissau overthrew President Umaro Sissoco Embaló in November 2025, three days after a presidential election but before the results had been published, claiming that they were preventing government infiltration by a drug baron. It was the ninth attempted coup in the country since independence from Portugal in 1974.
Coup agglomeration or contagion is sometimes an underplayed factor; geographic proximity to an unstable country increases the likelihood of political instability in any state, so countries with poor security levels tend to cluster, causing a domino effect. When military officers in one country successfully seize power without immediate repercussions, it lowers the perceived risks for dissatisfied officers in neighbouring states.
In the Sahel, the international community’s efforts to secure the region have generally focused on providing military support against Islamist militants and secessionist Tuareg forces. However, they have done little to address the underlying causes of the problem, as improving living standards and addressing climate change are long-term challenges.
France, in particular, but also other western governments, provided military muscle and support for local troops, but were unable to defeat the militants. The juntas ruling Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger all ejected the 5,500 French troops operating in the region (2022-3), turning instead to several hundred Russian mercenaries for support, but these too have had little success.
African national governments and international organisations have taken increasing responsibility for African security in recent years, but both the African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have struggled to deter coup contagion. They have refused to normalise coups, but after initially taking a hard line, they have been divided on whether to work with countries under military rule or to pressure them through sanctions.
Rather than promoting permanent military rule, coup leaders generally promise political reforms, greater security, anti-corruption measures and higher living standards, accompanied by a return to civilian, democratic rule. Yet these pledges have largely been unmet in the recent coups.
The idea that political stability is weakest – and therefore the risk of further coups is highest – in the Sahel is underlined by the fact that, among the coup-affected states, Gabon has moved furthest towards democratic rule. Yet even here, the process seems deeply flawed. Following the August 2023 coup that removed President Ali Bongo, coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema promised a transition culminating in a presidential election, which was eventually held in April 2025.
However, Oligui himself won the election with more than 90% of the vote, raising questions about the level of political competition. The new constitution strengthened the presidency by abolishing the post of prime minister while blocking all members of the post-coup transitional government from standing for office, with the notable exception of Oligui himself.
The new constitution also gives the Interior Ministry, rather than an independent body, responsibility for organising elections. NGO Freedom House gave the country a score of 5 out of 40 for political freedom in its 2026 survey, including zero ratings for levels of government openness, transparency and safeguards against corruption.
A similar situation occurred in Chad, with the younger Déby winning the uncompetitive May 2024 election. Then, in October 2025, parliament approved sweeping constitutional changes that removed term limits, a move widely condemned by international observers as a “constitutional coup” that allows Déby to rule indefinitely.
Guinea’s junta leader, General Mamady Doumbouya, won that country’s December 2025 presidential election with 86.7% of the vote, almost five years after the coup, in polls described as a “charade” by Guinea’s National Front for the Defence of the Constitution.
RIGHT: A campaign billboard ahead of the presidential elections in April 2025. Photo: Daniel Beloumou Olomo / AFP
The leaders of all the other coups promised a return to civilian rule, but none have yet done so. The Malian military initially promised a relatively quick transition but has repeatedly delayed elections, and the timetable remains uncertain. Similarly, planned elections in Burkina Faso have been postponed, with greater state control over electoral bodies and a new transition period until at least 2029. In Niger, General Abdourahamane Tchiani proposed a three-year transition to civilian rule from 2023, but that target will not be met, and the political opposition remains tightly controlled.
Sudan represents the most dramatic failure of the coup states. The October 2021 coup interrupted a fragile civilian-military power-sharing arrangement established after the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Rather than leading to elections, the political crisis deepened and eventually contributed to the outbreak of a devastating civil war in 2023 that has resulted in 150,000 to 400,000 deaths to date.
It is not surprising that many of these countries have not established democratic governments, as coups do not generally occur in countries with deep democratic roots. Some of the coups enjoyed limited public support, but popular support has generally evaporated as living standards have not improved.
With the possible exception of Gabon, the outlook for all the affected countries is negative. The evidence suggests that once militaries acquire political power, relinquishing it becomes difficult, and coups rarely produce quick democratic transitions. The common rationale for the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger was the inability of the civilian governments to defeat insurgencies, but military rule has not translated into decisive security improvements either. This reflects a broader reality: insurgencies are complex phenomena that cannot be fixed by a change of government.
The recent spate of coups may have removed unpopular governments, but they have not resolved long-running problems, including weak institutions, armed conflict, corruption, low living standards and environmental degradation, which produced public dissatisfaction in the first place. In most cases, military rule is proving far easier to establish than to end.
Dr Neil Alexander Ford has been a freelance consultant and journalist on African affairs for more than two decades. He covers a wide range of topics from international relations and organised crime to cross-border trade and renewable energy. Consultancy clients include international organisations, law firms and financial services companies, and he has acted as an expert witness in Africa-related legal cases. He has a PhD on East Africa’s international boundaries, ranging over the effect on regional economies; cross-border political disputes; and the impact of the boundaries on local communities, such as the Maasai.
