Perspectives
Coup contagion? A rash of African power grabs suggests copycats are taking note of others’ success
Salah Ben Hammou, Rice University and Jonathan Powell, University of Kentucky
In a scene that has become familiar across parts of Africa of late, a group of armed men in military garb appeared on state TV on Dec. 7, 2025, to announce that they had suspended the constitution and seized control.
This time it was the West African nation of Benin, and the coup was relatively short-lived, with the government regaining full control a day later. But a week before, senior military officers in Guinea-Bissau had more success, deposing President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and effectively annulling the Nov. 23 election in which both Embaló and the main opposition leader had claimed victory. A month earlier it was Madagascar, where a mass Gen-Z uprising led to the elite CAPSAT unit of the Malagasy military ousting President Andry Rajoelina and installing Colonel Michael Randrianirina as leader.
The cluster of coup attempts follows a broader pattern. Since 2020, there have been 11 successful military takeovers in Africa: one each in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sudan, Chad, Madagascar and Gabon; and two each in Burkina Faso and Mali. Benin represents the fifth failed coup over the same period.
The prevalence of military takeovers led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to warn as far back as 2021 of a coup “epidemic.”
But can coups, like the pathogens of many epidemics, be contagious? Certainly observers around the world continue to ask whether a military takeover in one country can influence the likelihood of another one happening elsewhere.
Do coups spread?
Cross-national research offers little firm evidence that a coup in one country directly increases the chances of another. And some scholars remain skeptical that such a phenomenon exists. Political scientist Naunihal Singh, for instance, argues that the recent wave’s coup plotters are drawing less from contemporary events than from their own countries’ long histories of military intervention.
In addition, he suggests that any observed regional cluster mostly reflects shared underlying conditions. For example, the countries across the Sahel region that have been the center of post-2020 African coups share a common set of coup-prone pressures: chronic insecurity driven by insurgencies, weak state capacity and widespread frustration over quality of governance.
Likewise, Michael Miller and colleagues at George Washington University, in a broader analysis, contend that would-be plotters pay closer attention to domestic dynamics than to foreign coups when deciding whether to move against their own governments.
As scholars of military coups, we recently explored the phenomenon and have come to a different conclusion.
Our forthcoming study argues that would-be plotters do indeed pay close attention when contemporaries seize power. A number of dynamics, however, could keep a statistical trend from being realized.
For one, statistical modeling typically requires contagion to occur within a tight temporal window, often 1 to 3 years.
Our findings challenge this approach. A wave of so-called “Free Officers” coups – military takeovers led by junior or mid-ranking nationalist officers, inspired by Egypt’s 1952 Free Officers movement – is a widely invoked example of contagion. The original Free Officers ousted King Farouk and went on to abolish the monarchy and end British influence in Egypt.
However, it took a full six years before a second “Free Officers” coup occurred in the region, in Iraq in 1958.
Rather than blindly follow the lead of Egypt’s coupists, would-be copycats watched closely, took notes and moved only when two factors lined up: the rewards appeared to be worth the risk, and they obtained the ability to make a takeover possible.
In the case of the post-1952 Middle East, the potential “rewards” of emulating Egypt’s Free Officers were not immediately apparent, even in countries with circumstances very similar to Egypt’s.
It wasn’t until the original Free Officers Movement’s leader, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, emerged as a revolutionary icon in the region that others attempted to emulate his success. Nasser’s status grew further through his anti-colonial sentiments and victories, like his handling of the Suez Crisis of 1956.
As Nasser’s influence grew, the perceived value of a military takeover increased, and Free Officers-inspired plots quickly proliferated against the region’s monarchies. Six years after the Egyptian coup, the first copycat coup succeeded in Iraq, followed by additional successes in Yemen, Libya and Sudan between 1962 and 1969.
A further complication to establishing a firm trend is that the success of one takeover may actually hinder the immediate progress of another. After all, would-be copycats are not the only observers.
Vulnerable leaders and their allies can take cues from coups in other countries to try to mitigate their spread at home.
Thwarted conspiracies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which were uncovered between 1955 and 1969, demonstrated that while the sentiment to emulate Egypt’s coup was widespread, not all plotters had the capacity to act. Some governments were better prepared to block these attempts. Foreign partners like the United States and Great Britain also played no small role in helping shore up their monarchical allies against coup plots.
Africa’s coup wave
The case of the Free Officers Movement shows that plotters wait for clear signals that a coup is worth the risk. In Africa today, those signals are more immediate, even without a monumental figure like Egypt’s Nasser.
Coupists now see visible domestic support for military takeovers and muted international consequences for those who seize power.
It is increasingly clear to us that the region has seen a large increase in public support for military rule during this post-2020 wave.
Military coupists like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré and Mali’s Assimi Goïta have not only attracted domestic support but also regional popularity, lauded for their anti-colonial rhetoric against France and their willingness to confront the Economic Community of West Africa States.
Data from Afrobarometer, which has regularly asked about respondents’ positions on having military rule, illustrate this shift clearly.
In the survey wave that ended in 2013, less than 11% of respondents in Benin said they supported or strongly supported army rule. This nearly doubled to 19% by 2021 and has now tripled, with 1 in 3 people in Benin expressing support for military rule. While a majority still opposes military rule, the direction of this change is significant.
These attitudes are reinforced by military leaders’ promises to “clean up” corrupt or ineffective governments. In Madagascar, for example, over 60% of citizens in 2024 said it was permissible for the armed forces to remove leaders who abuse power.
Highly visible images of cheering pro-military crowds in countries like Niger and Gabon further signal that a takeover can gain public support.
International indifference
The international signals are just as important. From the near-absent reaction to the Zimbabwean military’s removal of Robert Mugabe in 2017 to the lukewarm response to Chad’s military takeover in 2021, these cases suggest that international punishment can be temporary or even nonexistent.
The message is reinforced when coup leaders who are initially condemned, like Madagascar’s Randrianirina, later gain acceptance from regional organizations like the South African Development Community. In Guinea-Bissau, attention on last month’s coup has somehow seemed to focus more on President Embaló’s alleged involvement in the coup than on the military’s unconstitutional seizure of power.
And the lessons drawn from international responses involve more than just the seizure of power. Contemporary military leaders are staying in power much longer than their predecessors in the early 2000s, either by indefinitely delaying elections or by directly contesting them.
Although the African Union’s framework specifically forbids coup leaders from standing in elections, there has been virtually no consequences for coupists consolidating their rule via elections in places like Chad and Gabon.
This is not lost on would-be plotters, who see their contemporaries seize and legitimize their authority with minimal pushback.
To some degree, the spread of coups depends on how they are received. And in the case of the recent rash of military takeovers in Africa, the international community and domestic policymakers have done little in the way of stemming that spread.
Salah Ben Hammou, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Rice University and Jonathan Powell, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Kentucky
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
In this open letter to the European Union Ambassador to Ghana, policy analyst Seth Kwame Awuku condemns the EU’s abstention from UNGA Resolution A/80/L.48—a Ghana-led resolution naming the transatlantic slave trade a crime against humanity. Awuku argues that Europe’s silence, masked by legal technicalities, constitutes a moral evasion that wounds the possibility of true partnership.
To the EU Ambassador: The Triple Wound of Silence
By Seth Kwame Awuku
Ghana speaks from the depths of ancestral memory – will Europe answer with the poetry of conscience, or the cold prose of abstention?
To: His Excellency, Ambassador of the European Union to Ghana
Subject: Ghana’s Leadership on Reparative Justice and the EU’s Abstention on UNGA Resolution A/80/L.48
Your Excellency,
History does not forget. It merely waits – patient as the Atlantic, restless as the spirits of the Middle Passage – for the silenced to reclaim their voice.
On 25 March 2026, even as Ghana and the European Union formalized a new pact of cooperation, the United Nations became a theatre of reckoning. Ghana, carrying the scars and the soul of a continent, led Resolution A/80/L.48. It passed with 123 votes in favor, only three against, and 52 abstentions – the entire European Union among them.
The resolution does not invent new truths. It simply names what was long softened by euphemism: the transatlantic trafficking in human beings and the racialized chattel enslavement of millions as among the gravest crimes against humanity – a profound violation of jus cogens, those peremptory norms that no civilization may forever evade.
And yet Europe abstained.
How does one reconcile this? A Europe that adorns itself in the robes of enlightenment, human rights, and moral universality suddenly finds its voice faltering when confronted with the chains it once forged, the ships it once commanded, and the fortunes it once harvested from African blood and bone.
President John Dramani Mahama cut through the veils with piercing clarity:
“Truth begins with language. There was no such thing as a slave , there were human beings who were trafficked and enslaved.”
Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa reminded the world that this was no solitary lament, but the collective heartbeat of Africa.
The response was telling. The African Union and CARICOM stood united. Arab and Muslim-majority nations lent their voices. Even Russia added its weight. Most strikingly, the two most populous nations on earth – China and India – stood firmly in favor, joining the global majority that now numbers well over half of humanity.
Europe, meanwhile, retreated behind the familiar shield of legal technicalities – non-retroactivity, hierarchies of suffering, the comforting arithmetic of intertemporal law.
Yet some wounds run too deep for procedural salve. When millions were reduced to cargo across the bitter sea, when entire societies were bled to fuel another continent’s ascent, morality does not dissolve merely because the laws of that era looked the other way. Silence, in the face of such a triple wound – capture, crossing, and commodification – is not neutrality. It is an echo of the old evasion.
Ghana seeks no vengeance cloaked in justice. We extend an open hand: for honest dialogue on apology, for the restitution of stolen cultural souls, for guarantees that yesterday’s dehumanization finds no new masks in our time.
This is the triple heritage we bear: Africa’s ancient resilience, the open wound of yesterday, and the shared moral burden for tomorrow.
Your Excellency, true partnership between Europe and Africa cannot take root in the barren soil of selective amnesia. It must be nourished by truth, watered by memory, and protected by the courage to face history without flinching.
Will Europe persist in the comfort of abstention, or will it rise to the higher poetry of genuine engagement?
The eyes of Africa, the restless spirits of the ancestors, the billions represented by China and India, and generations yet unborn are watching.
The choice, as ever, rests with Europe.
Yours in the restless pursuit of a more honest humanity,
Seth K. Awuku.
About Seth K. Awuku
Policy analyst, writer, poet, and former immigration and refugee law practitioner in Canada; He writes on law, governance, diplomacy and international relations. He is Principal, Sovereign Advisory Ltd, Takoradi.
Email: sethawuku.sa@gmail.com
Tel: 0243022027
In this thoughtful opinion piece, Seth Kwame Awuku reflects on Ghana’s leadership in the recent UN resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity. He responds to Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin’s remarks highlighting African complicity in the trade, arguing that while internal agency must be acknowledged, it should not overshadow the industrial scale, systematic brutality, and long-term dehumanisation driven primarily by European powers.
Between Memory and Partnership: Ghana’s Moral Test on Reparatory Justice
By Seth Kwame Awuku
There are moments in a nation’s life that call less for outrage than for honest reflection.
The recent remarks by Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin on reparatory justice offer precisely such a moment. Measured in tone yet unflinching in substance, his intervention deserves careful consideration as Ghana weighs its relationship with history, memory, and international diplomacy.
In Parliament, Afenyo-Markin posed a pointed question: “Somebody parks a vessel at Cape Coast, and you go to the North, to Brong, Ashanti, Assin… [and apprehend the strongest among your own people]. Then, after 100 years, you say you should be compensated – who should compensate whom?” He added that “we maltreated our own and told the white man that he must also maltreat our own.”
The latter claim somewhat overstates the case – Ghanaians did not “tell” Europeans to maltreat their kin – but his broader point highlights an uncomfortable complexity: African agency and complicity in the capture and sale of fellow Africans. Acknowledging this reality does not negate the case for reparations, nor does it justify Western reluctance to confront their role.
However, overemphasizing internal complicity risks obscuring the scale and character of the transatlantic slave trade.
To his credit, Afenyo-Markin explicitly condemned “the inhumane treatment – the humiliation, injustice, marginalisation, and abuse of our ancestors who became victims of the slave trade.”
This tension, moral recognition without a corresponding commitment to meaningful redress, lies at the heart of the current debate, particularly in the wake of Ghana’s leadership at the United Nations.
Recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity is, at its core, about establishing historical and moral truth. Yes, some African actors participated in the trade.
But the enterprise was externally driven, massively scaled, and ruthlessly industrialized by European powers. What began as localized capture and sale evolved into a vast system of chattel slavery, sustained by the horrors of the Middle Passage and generations of hereditary bondage. The vivid brutality portrayed in Roots, through the story of Kunta Kinte, stripped of name, culture, and dignity, captures not merely forced labor, but a deliberate and enduring project of dehumanization.
Ghana, as custodian of these painful memories, carries a unique symbolic weight. Its coastal slave forts- Cape Coast Castle, Elmina, and others- stand as solemn reminders of both unimaginable suffering and the uneasy partnerships that enabled it. Reparatory justice therefore demands moral consistency: does acknowledgment alone suffice, or must it extend to material and structural redress for the enduring legacies of slavery and colonialism?
The Minority Leader’s emphasis on practical national interests is understandable. Ghana must sustain strong diplomatic and economic partnerships with Western nations. Yet an overemphasis on African complicity can inadvertently weaken the moral claim, allowing historical accountability to give way to diplomatic convenience.
Serious advocates of reparatory justice do not deny African agency; rather, they situate it within its proper historical context. While some local actors profited from the sale of captives, it was Europe that industrialized the trade, accumulated immense wealth from it, and later entrenched colonial systems whose effects persist.
Ghana’s challenge, then, is to strike a careful balance: pragmatic diplomacy on one hand, and Pan-African ethical conviction on the other. This balance is most credible when grounded in historical clarity and moral courage, the kind embodied by thinkers such as Kwame Nkrumah and Ali Mazrui.
Ghana must now choose with clarity and conviction. Pragmatic partnerships need not come at the expense of historical justice. True leadership demands confronting the full truth of the slave trade, both the painful African role and the overwhelming European responsibility, without allowing discomfort to dilute moral purpose.
At this quiet crossroads, Ghana should lead not by equivocation, but by insisting that reparatory justice is not an act of charity, but a rightful claim grounded in truth, dignity, and the unfinished business of history. Only by upholding principle alongside partnership can we honour our ancestors and secure a future rooted in genuine equity.
About the Author
Seth Kwame Awuku is a Ghanaian writer and policy commentator with a background in law, political science, and international relations. He writes on governance, diplomacy, and questions of historical justice in Africa.
Principal, Sovereign Advisory Ltd
Takoradi, Ghana
Email: sethawuku.sa@gmail.com
Tel: +233 24 302 2027
Opinion
Why Ghanaian Officials Must Know About and Prepare for the Hidden Risks of a Mass Black American Return to Ghana
Ghana has, in recent years, positioned itself as a spiritual and cultural home for the global African diaspora. From the Year of Return to sustained “Beyond the Return” campaigns, the country has actively invited Black Americans and others in the diaspora to reconnect, invest, and, in some cases, resettle.
The vision is powerful: a historic reconnection, economic collaboration, and a reimagining of Pan-African unity. But if that return becomes mass and sustained, it will not unfold in a vacuum. It will bring with it a complex set of cultural, political, and economic tensions that—if unaddressed—could strain the very unity it seeks to build.
The question is not whether return is desirable. It is whether Ghana is prepared for the social consequences of return at scale.
Belonging vs Reality: Who Gets to Be “Home”?
At the heart of the return movement lies a deeply emotional idea: that Ghana is “home” for descendants of the transatlantic slave trade. Scholars in Diaspora Studies, including Paul Gilroy, have long described this as a form of symbolic belonging—rooted in history, identity, and shared ancestry.
But symbolic belonging does not always translate into lived belonging.
For many Ghanaians, “home” is not an abstract idea—it is a lived reality shaped by language, social norms, and everyday struggles. A large influx of returnees may therefore create friction around identity: Who is considered Ghanaian? Who has the right to shape its culture?
These tensions have surfaced in other return contexts across West Africa, where diaspora communities were at times viewed as culturally distant or economically privileged outsiders. In Liberia, a long-standing and rigid class structure between diasporans returning home and locals contributed in no small way to a debilitating civil war that the country is still reeling from. While the “return home” situations in Liberia were somewhat different from Ghana’s current situation, the same socioeconomic disparities that broke the country could happen here in Ghana.
If unmanaged, the emotional promise of “return” could give way to questions of legitimacy and belonging.
When Value Systems Collide
Perhaps the most sensitive fault line lies in values.
Many Black American returnees come from societies where liberal individual rights—particularly around gender, sexuality, and self-expression—are more publicly accepted. In contrast, Ghana’s social fabric is deeply influenced by religion and tradition
This disparity in values creates a potential clash not just of opinions, but of moral frameworks.
Debates around LGBTQ rights, for example, are not merely political in Ghana—they are often framed as spiritual and communal concerns. Public advocacy or visibility by returnees could therefore be interpreted not as personal expression, but as cultural imposition.
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has argued for a cosmopolitan approach that allows for moral dialogue across cultures. But dialogue requires mutual recognition. Without it, value differences can quickly harden into cultural conflict. Beyond simply informing diasporan returnees about the legal and social realities surrounding LGBTQ+ issues in Ghana, there must also be a deliberate effort to foster understanding of prevailing Ghanaian cultural norms—even as space remains for respectful dialogue and coexistence.
The Economics of Return: Opportunity or Displacement?
Return is not just cultural—it is economic.
Diaspora communities often arrive with stronger currencies, access to capital, and global networks. In cities like Accra, this can accelerate investment in real estate, hospitality, and the creative economy.
But economic inflows can also produce unintended consequences.
Urban scholars studying Gentrification warn that capital-driven development often raises property values, pricing out local residents. Already, parts of Accra have seen rising rents and the emergence of lifestyle enclaves catering to affluent newcomers.
At the same time, returnees may enter sectors—media, tech, tourism—where young Ghanaians are also seeking opportunity, creating perceptions of competition rather than collaboration.
If the benefits of return are not broadly distributed, economic optimism could quickly give way to resentment. This is the moment for the Parliament of Ghana to draft—or strengthen—legislation governing diaspora return, land access, and economic participation. Beyond lawmaking, sustained public engagement will be essential: structured forums, community workshops, and targeted media campaigns aimed at educating both returnees and local communities.
Politics and the Question of Influence
As return deepens, so too will questions of political voice.
Should returnees have voting rights? Should they influence public policy? How much say should non-resident or newly resident citizens have in shaping national debates?
These are not abstract questions. They sit at the intersection of sovereignty and identity, long examined within Political Sociology and Transnationalism. Man is a political animal!
A politically active diaspora can bring fresh ideas, advocacy, and global attention. But it can also trigger suspicion—particularly if local populations perceive external influence as overriding domestic priorities.
In a polarized global environment, even well-intentioned activism can be recast as interference. Ghana needs to tap into extant best practices and either adopt them or adapt them to the Ghanaian situation.
Class, Perception, and the Risk of Social Distance
Not all tensions are ideological. Some are simply about perception. Different forms of capital—economic, cultural, social—shape power and status.
Returnees may possess global cultural capital (education, accent, networks) that elevates their social standing, even when their actual wealth varies.
This can create social distance.
Exclusive neighborhoods, curated social spaces, and “diaspora bubbles” risk reinforcing a divide between locals and returnees. Over time, stereotypes can take hold on both sides—of entitlement, of exclusion, of misunderstanding.
And once social distance sets in, even minor disagreements can escalate into broader tensions.
Building Harmony Is Not Automatic
None of these tensions are inevitable. But neither are they imaginary.
If Ghana is to sustain a large-scale return movement, it must move beyond celebration to preparation.
That means:
– Structured cultural orientation for returnees
– Policies that encourage joint economic participation, not displacement
– Clear legal frameworks around rights and responsibilities
– Public dialogue platforms involving religious leaders, scholars, and civil society
– Media narratives that humanize both locals and returnees
Above all, it requires a shift in mindset: from assuming unity to actively building it.
A Shared Future, If Carefully Built
The return of the diaspora is one of the most compelling stories of the 21st century—a chance to reconnect history with possibility.
But unity cannot be based on sentiment alone.
It must be negotiated across differences in culture, values, and power. It must recognize that “home” is not just a place of origin, but a living society with its own rhythms and realities.
If Ghana can navigate these complexities, it has the opportunity to model a new kind of global belonging—one that is honest about its tensions, and deliberate about its harmony.
If not, the promise of return could become a source of division rather than renewal.
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