Across Africa, contested ballots, violent crackdowns, coups d’état and military transitions morphing into long-term rule combined to make 2025 a year in which, as one analyst tells RFI, “the law of the strongest has become commonplace”. With no fewer than 10 presidential elections held across the African continent, the political stakes were high in 2025….
Monrovia, Liberia — The West Africa Bar Association (WABA), a leading regional organization representing legal professionals across West Africa, has issued a strong condemnation of recent military interventions in governance, warning that such actions pose a severe threat to democracy, constitutional order, and regional stability. The statement specifically referenced the recent coup in Guinea-Bissau and…
Abuja, Nigeria — West African leaders meeting in Abuja have issued a sweeping communiqué that hardens the regional bloc’s stance against coups, revives momentum for a single currency, and lays out a far-reaching reform agenda ahead of a Special Summit on the future of ECOWAS. At the 68th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of…
Coups in Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau, an attempted coup in Benin: Africa has had a turbulent 2025. Why have coups become so frequent? Two coups and one foiled coup within eight weeks constitute a new dimension even for Africa’s recent history. In October, the military in Madagascar deposed the president after weeks of protests. Then in November, soldiers in Guinea-Bissau deposed…
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has suggested that the country’s intervention in Benin Republic should be the model whenever democracy is threatened in the sub-region or Africa at large but on the request of the authorities of the distressed member-state of ECOWAS or the African Union (AU). The Minister said this on Thursday…
In recent years, Africa has witnessed a troubling resurgence of coups, with military takeovers disrupting governance and reversing democratic progress across the continent. From Mali in 2020 to Guinea-Bissau in November 2025, and most recently Madagascar in October 2025, these events reflect deep-seated challenges that demand urgent attention from African leaders, regional organizations, and the…
Coups and their aftermath also fractured ECOWAS as they led to the creation of the Alliance for Sahel States (AES) by three junta-led West African states. Guinea-Bissau has become the latest West African country to experience a coup, bringing the tally of such incidents in the sub-region since the turn of the decade to 10….
August 2025 makes it five years since Malian soldiers ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in a coup d’état. While the event reshaped Mali’s domestic politics, it also marked the beginning of a broader wave of military takeovers that swept parts of Africa between 2020 and 2023. Soldiers have toppled governments in Niger, Burkina Faso (twice),…
