Many countries in Africa have had military takeovers recently preferably in the west and central, with the most recently in Gaboon, where President Bongo was deposed and placed under house arrest by a group of soldiers led by General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nuema who has since been designated as the president of the transitional committee, former president Bongo had been in power since 2009 and had been declared as the winner of the just concluded presidential elections in Gabon.
Besides the Gabonese military takeover, there are many military coups happening all over the continent of Africa, more coups than other continents, out of 18 coups registered globally, since 2018, one military takeover was seen outside Africa in Myanmar.
Military takeovers have had a long history in Africa, many African countries immediately after gaining independence, they directly started experiencing military takeovers, for instance, Togo was the first country in West Africa to experience a military coup when on 13, January 1963 a group of soldiers overthrew and murdered President Sylvanus Olympio, in the end, Emmanuel Bodjolle was installed as the chairman of the insurrection committee, it is highly believed that these soldiers were supported by the French.
Unlike the recent military takeovers that have been looked at as coups to reduce the influence of Western countries in Africa, most of the first organized coups in Africa were plotted with much support from the Western world. During the first military takeover in Ghana, where the first president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown on February 24, 1966, sources later revealed that the central intelligence agency advised and supported a group of dissident army officers known as 30com, who overthrew president Kwame Nkrumah.
This was because Nkrumah had positioned himself to transform Africa away from outward-oriented neo-colonial dependency and was driving the continent towards an in-ward facing national and ultimately continental developmental development plan, and to the exploiters of Africa, Nkrumah had to be eliminated, to secure their interests in Africa.
A similar case happened in the Democratic Republic of Congo, when the country’s first African naturalistic leader, the first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was captured and imprisoned en route by state authorities under mobutu, he was later handed over to the Katanga authorities and executed in the presence of Belgian officials and military officers, mobutu’ murder was clandestinely plotted by the west by the west to secure their interests in Congo.
Former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Unlike the first military takeovers in Africa, which were organised with much support of the Western powers and secret international organisations with selfish interests in Africa, the recent military takeovers have been organised internally by groups of young and determined army officers to counterattack Western influence in their respective countries.
These have overthrown leaders who have long kept in power and are backed by the West and serve Western interests in Africa, in most cases these leaders have been in power through shunning elections that have a lot of malpractices fuelled by the Western countries. For example, in Niger Republic, Mohamed Bazoum was toppled by the military junta on July 2, 2023.
The junta has then accused the ousted President Mohamed Bazoum of being pro-West and promoting French interests in the entire western Africa. The junta has promised to expel the French ambassador from Niger, similar situations are happening in Mali, Burkina Faso Guinea where the military has promised to end Western policies in their respective countries.
Kamukama Rukundo Clinton is a Ugandan pan-Africanist, author, and columnist for 1cananews who can be contacted via +256704393540 or rukundopeter33@gmail.com
