Resurgence of Military Rule in West Africa and the Formation of the Alliance of Sahel States: Implications for Regional Stability

Independence in much of Africa was followed by military coups. In West Africa, only Senegal did not have a record of military interregnum to date. Coups were fashionable from the 1960s to the late 1980s, but at the turn of the new millennium, several countries began a paradigm shift to civil rule as some hitherto military-led countries began a gradual shift to “democracy.” Sadly, democracy in West Africa took the forms of flawed or hybrid democracies. After decades of testrunning democracy with millions of people slipping into the slippery slope of multidimensional poverty, many countries have relapsed into military rule in the sub-region. This paper adopted a qualitative approach to interrogate the causes and implications of the resurgence of military rule and the circumstances leading to the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States, made up of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. The paper found that poverty and insecurity are the most significant and profound drivers of the resurgence of military rule in West Africa, and recommends a homegrown governance system that is rooted in Africa’s cultural, socio-economic, political realities.