Last week, soldiers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, staged a coup. Ostensibly, they were upset with military and civilian leadership and their lack of effective planning and equipment in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel. However, citizens celebrated in the streets after the coup, apparently happy to be rid of the government of President Roch Kaboré. This isn’t the first time that citizens appreciated the ouster of a government they didn’t believe in, but it is a very dangerous precedent.

In Nigeria some decades ago, politicians encouraged military intervention to rid themselves of a problematic government, like wiping the pieces off a chess board when you look to be losing the game. Nigerian military leaders soon realized that they didn’t have to turn government back over to politicians foolish enough to demonstrate that representative democracy wasn’t that valuable.

These experiences showed how difficult it is to get rid of a military government once in place. This is made even more difficult by military leaders taking off their uniforms and even running as a civilian candidate. They usually still govern like military leaders – heedless of the needs and wants of the people. One hopes the people of Burkina Faso don’t have cause to regret their joy over this coup, but they probably will before too long.

The Burkina Faso coup was the fourth in West Africa alone in the last 17 months. A colleague shared a graphic that showed the successful African coups between 1999-2021. It listed: Burkina Faso (2 before this current one), Central Africa Republic (2), Chad (1), Egypt (1), Guinea (1), Guinea Bissau (1), Madagascar (1), Mali (3 – two within the last few months), Mauritania (2), Niger (1), Sudan (1), Tunisia (1) and Zimbabwe (1).

And the parade of military attempts at coups continues. Last weekend, military elements unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the Government of Guinea Bissau. BBC reported that armed men surrounded the government palace on Tuesday, where President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam were believed to have gone to attend a cabinet meeting. The state broadcaster reported that the shooting had damaged the government palace, located close to the airport, and that “invaders” were holding government officials.

Embalo said days later that “many” members of the security forces had been killed in a “failed attack against democracy”. Al Jazeera reported that it was unable to confirm at that time if the shooting has stopped. Appearing in a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page hours after gunfire was heard, Al Jazeera reported that Embalo said some of the people involved had been arrested, but he did not know how many. In the video, Embalo said the failed putsch was linked to decisions taken by him “notably to fight drug trafficking and corruption”.

The reasons behind the 2012 coup in Mali have been echoed in the more recent government overthrows: disgruntled militaries often popular with the people (Egypt), popular discontent with economic policies (Sudan), contagion from nearby coups (Burkina Faso) and domestic political crisis (Zimbabwe).

Perhaps the most salient reason for African coups is the lack of good governance. Western donor nations have long stressed the need for good stewardship in Africa countries, but that demand is often brushed off as neocolonial arrogance. Yet if a government doesn’t serve the interest of its people, it can’t expect to sustain itself in power. Not even sharing ill-gotten wealth with the military is a guarantee. That didn’t work with the late Mobutu sese Seko in what was then known as Zaire. It didn’t prevent his regime from crumbling, although some would argue that he didn’t share enough with the military. Despite being seen by many Africans as more disciplined and popular than the government and the police, military leaders are too often part of the misappropriation of state resources citizens reject. They just aren’t satisfied with their cut, or they foresee the government losing power and seize it while it can be taken.

In these latest successful coups, other issues have arisen. One is the growing unpopularity of France as a guardian of African democracies in the Francophone countries. BBC reported last December 5 that French President Emmanuel Macron has increased aid to the continent, begun the return of cultural artifacts stolen during the colonial wars and reached out beyond the usual inter-government ties to engage younger generations and civil society. He has kept French troops in the Sahel to fight the jihadist militants that kill so many local civilians, police and soldiers, BBC reported, and supported the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as it tries to defend electoral politics against military takeovers.

Nevertheless, African governments, such as in Mali are turning away from France for help. They know that French military assistance is mainly aimed at stopping jihadists before the endanger French interest in Africa or emigrate to France. Francophone Africans are increasingly calling for abolishment of the CFA – the regional currency used by many of their countries and which is pegged to the euro under a French government guarantee. There also is growing discontent with the arrangements Francophone African leaders made years ago to deposit money into France’s Central Bank and have France manage their money.

So poisonous have these relationships with France become that Mali is negotiating with a Russian mercenary group to replace French troops in the fight against jihadists in the North. As you might imagine, this is drawing consternation in the West, which currently is engaged in a quiet Cold War with Russia again, but the discontent with French influence within Francophone Africa is undeniable. Francophone governments, in this case Mali, may think that Russia is neutral, but there is no neutrality when big-power interests are involved. None of them help without wanting something in return.

The thing is, the push for good governance is an effort to ensure accountability so that aid money is well-used and security of governance is better ensured. Countries like Russia and China don’t really want good governance. Democracy and accountability to citizens interferes with their use of bribery to get what they want from short-sighted African leaders. Moreover, military leaders are more likely to embrace the authoritarianism in Russia and China than elected civilian leaders, who must be cautious about maintaining public support. With authoritarian leaders, deals with corrupted executive branch officials can be done without legislative or judicial oversight or popular revolts at the ballot box.

Preventing coups from taking place in the first instance is better than trying to punish coup leaders after the fact. Even when the African Union or regional economic communities suspend coup-created new governments, that seldom holds. If you recall, the 1997 coup that brought Denis Sassou-Nguesso to power was vehemently opposed by the international community at the time, but Sassou-Nguesso is still President and Congo-Brazzaville is still in the AU, as are other countries ruled by military or former military leaders.

Sanctions can work to the extent you punish not just the offending officials, but also their private sector cronies at home and in the international community, but there doesn’t seem to be an enduring appetite to punish multinational companies that do business in countries where coups have toppled elected governments. Anti-coup furors fade as transitional governments are put in place and military leaders take off their uniforms and run as civilians.

This is why we’ve gone from eight successful coups in the 2010s to six since 2020. Then there are the unsuccessful ones, such as in Guinea Bissau, and repeatedly in times past, Equatorial Guinea. From the 1960s-1980s, Ghana had four successful military seizures of power, and Nigeria experienced five such military takeovers. We now seem to have returned to the era of wiping the political chess board clean, but it probably won’t turn out to be as positive a result as the cheering African citizens of today expect.