By Ibraheem Daramy
The much celebrated independence of the 1960s was, in reality, little more than a transfer of power from the white colonial administrator to the formerly oppressed Black elite. In substance, very little changed. Many describe Sierra Leone as a nation state; I respectfully disagree. It is telling that, outside Europe and North America, Asia is the only continent with a coherent and realistic agenda for transformation.
Africa is a continent of artificial borders. Its people were forced to accept political entities they had no role in creating. A casual visit to many African border communities exposes the fiction of these lines. Local populations go about their daily lives with little regard for the boundaries drawn on maps. Ethnic groups straddle borders effortlessly, bonded by language, culture, and kinship rather than passports.
This reality explains why borders in many parts of Africa become fertile ground for insurgencies. Communities on either side of a border can easily identify with armed groups operating within their ethnic space. With promises of a better life, such groups can recruit willingly. Beyond the divide and rule tactics perfected by political elites, border communities often care little about which state claims jurisdiction over them.
Africa is officially the poorest region in the world, and unsurprisingly so. It is an extremely hostile environment for private sector investment. Consequently, the state becomes the primary, often the only, viable economic actor. Electricity tariffs are exorbitant, rendering local businesses uncompetitive against firms in heavily subsidised economies with cheap and reliable power. It is therefore absurd, though unsurprising, that we import poultry products and even our staple food, rice. The absence of technology, financing, and institutional support has crippled agribusiness, leaving farming largely to those wealthy enough to absorb catastrophic losses.
There is a persistent cliché that the worst civilian government is better than the best military government. This is where Africa’s intellectual emancipation must begin. We have civilian leaders who, apart from the ceremonial title of Commander in Chief, have never worn a military uniform, yet rule as dictators. A civilian autocrat who manipulates constitutions and elections can be more destructive than a soldier who seizes power by force.
Consider Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire, now serving a fourth consecutive five year term. Or his counterpart in Benin Republic, who narrowly survived an attempted overthrow less than a week ago. In both cases, elections reportedly produced implausible margins of over eighty or even ninety percent of the vote after main challengers were imprisoned or disqualified. Electoral commissions across the continent are structurally dysfunctional, often withholding results long after outcomes are already known to the public.
Japan and Korea have endured decades of diplomatic tension over conflicting historical narratives of colonisation. In Africa, however, our deeply flawed histories, largely written by outsiders, have gone largely unchallenged. Contrast this with genuine nation states such as Bangladesh for Bengalis, Thailand for Thais, or Sri Lanka for Tamils. Western Europe, roughly the size of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was allowed to fragment peacefully. Even minor linguistic differences justified the separation of Slovenians and Slovaks, enabling each to preserve a distinct identity.
Africa was denied that process. As a result, when coups are planned, often from border regions, the perpetrators can be embraced as liberators by communities that see them as their own. For some actors, visible and invisible, war is both a business and a means of self discovery.
I remain convinced that Africa should have retained the name Organisation of African Unity rather than adopting African Union. The change feels externally influenced. Imagine France placing a call that prompts Nigeria to intervene militarily in Benin Republic following a coup attempt. President Emmanuel Macron’s recent state visit to Abuja makes such coincidences difficult to ignore.
The Marshall Plan, often romanticised, effectively subordinated European states to United States strategic interests, cemented through military bases and later institutionalised under NATO. Power, history shows us, is rarely altruistic. It merely wears different disguises.
Coups, therefore, are not disappearing from Africa anytime soon. They are symptoms of deeper structural, historical, and political failures that independence never truly resolved.
