December 28, (THEWILL) — In its reaction to the recent botched coup d’etat in Benin Republic, ECOWAS issued a statement to the effect that the regional body will support the government and the people in all forms necessary, including the deployment of the regional standby force, to defend the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Benin. Well said.
Even so, the regional body needs to embark on a soul search on why West Africa is becoming more attractive to military rule than other regions in Africa.
Indeed, West Africa has become the epicentre of coup plots and a resurgence of military rule at a time democratic governance is slowly taking root in other regions across Africa.
Apart from Chad and Gabon in Central Africa, recently put under the jackboots and in Cameroon whose leader, Paul Biya has overstayed, fuelling rumour of coup plot in that country, West Africa has become notorious for coup d’etat.
This fashion for military rule in the region should ring a bell in the minds of the regional leaders about lack of good governance with people as the ultimate beneficiary of government policies, due process and accountability. Admittedly, this region is also facing serious security concerns, but that would be a lame excuse for any government that puts its people as the centre of every policy.
According to a prediction by the United Nations, the population of African youth will increase to 42 percent in the next five years. For a generation that did not witness the era of military rule in the past two decades, persistent corruption, wasteful spending, reckless burrowing and insecurity by many governments in the region sends a bad signal about governance.
In the past five years, coup d’etat has taken place in West Africa with clockwork regularity. It happened in Mali in 2020, followed by Guinea in 2021, then Burkina Faso in 2022, Niger in 2023 and most recently in Guinea Bissau, where President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, was alleged by Nigeria’s ex-President Goodluck Jonathan to have staged a coup plot on November 27, 2025 to save face in a possible election defeat! How anti-governance can a president be? His disgraceful conduct paints the perfect setting for the coup plot.
He was a former army general who was first elected in 2019, having been backed by a coalition of parties known as Madem G15, a break -away group that he formed after leaving the oldest ruling, pre-independence, political party, African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, PAIGC, on whose platform he had served as Prime Minister.
After he was sworn in February 2020, the opposition challenged his victory and the Supreme Court did not recognise him as president until September 2020. He soon launched a ‘war’ against his former allies, rivals and orchestrated arrests of military officers alleged to have taken part in attempted coups in 2022 and 2023. He even dissolved the opposition-controlled parliament and ruled through decrees for the past two years.
He held on to power after his tenure expired in February 2025, though a Supreme Court ruling said the tenure ended in September.
Amid the ongoing political instability in the country he had manufactured, including placing a ban on the PAIGC, he called for election in November 2025. Still, he could not hold on for the results of the election he organised to be concluded before announcing a coup plot himself.
This story of instability, insecurity and frustration with governance is a recurring one in almost all other West Africa countries where coup detat had taken place.
While all these shenanigans were going on, ECOWAS leaders looked the other way. They saw nothing, said nothing.
That may be why in their statements after the did has been done, they hardly propose an antidote to the coup rather than making a pledge action against the coup. ECOWAS, understandably has a robust anti-coup framework, which appears to have always been observed in the breach.
Under its Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance (2001), Article 1(d) Protocol explicitly declares “Zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means”. Also, Article 1(c) stipulates that “every ascension to power must be made through free, fair and transparent elections”. It is high time leaders in the region imbibed and operated these protocols to the letter and spirit.
