Interrogating military interventions through Ibrahim Traoré’s Pan-Africanist and governance lens
PAUL T. SHIPALE (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
Introduction: The return of the barracks
With the recent coup d’état in Madagascar on October 14, 2025, when the military seized power after weeks of protests largely driven by Gen Z, and the alleged failed coup plot in Nigeria, where a number of military commanders ranging from major to brigadier general were arrested after failing to topple President Bola Tinubu, Africa has between 2020 and 2025 witnessed a resurgence of military coups from Mali and Guinea to Burkina Faso, Niger and now Madagascar.
In total, there were 10 successful coups across eight countries in Africa. Research indicates that the continent has experienced more coups and attempts than any other region – roughly 220 since 1950, of which about 109 succeeded. This new wave of “coups contagion” exposes not merely a breakdown of constitutional order but a deeper crisis of governance and legitimacy.
What distinguishes this moment is not only its frequency but its ideological texture. Some coup leaders, notably Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso, frame their interventions within a discourse of Pan-African lliberation,seeking to recast the coup not as a seizure of power, but as a reclamation of sovereignty. Whether this represents a new paradigm or a repackaged populism depends on how deeply these movements confront the structural roots of Africa’s governance malaise.
A symptom of decay
Military interventions are often justified as responses to corruption, insecurity, and national paralysis. Yet they reveal a tragic paradox, the very institutions that claim to rescue the state are themselves products of that decay. Soldiers, disillusioned by civilian misrule, become both symptom and actor of political failure exploiting public anger to legitimize their interventions while often reproducing the same dysfunctions they sought to cure.
In places such as Mali and Burkina Faso, repeated coups highlight the exhaustion of political imagination. The recurrence of takeovers does not signify revolutionary renewal but institutional stagnation. As Traoré himself has acknowledged, the coup is not an end in itself but a “rupture made necessary by the failure of elites to defend the people.” The question, then, is whether this rupture becomes a genuine re-foundation or simply a recycled narrative of saviourism.
Nigeria: The heart of the African experiment
Africa’s most populous nation and economic powerhouse remains the symbolic test case for continental stability. Should it fall to coup-driven politics, the shockwaves would ripple far beyond its borders, shaking the foundations of the Pan-African project.
The alleged coup plot in Nigeria on 19 October 2025 cannot be dismissed as an isolated national event. It reflects a continental tension between Africa’s aspiration for self-determined governance and the neo-colonial structures that still compromise its sovereignty. What appears as domestic unrest is, in truth, a struggle over the soul of African governance: Who governs Africa its people, or the interests that shape its institutions from afar?
The coup as a reflection of disillusionment
A Pan-Africanist does not glorify coups; they are ruptures in the people’s democratic continuity, symptoms of failed leadership and broken legitimacy. Yet understanding their recurrence demands empathy for the social despair that nurtures them.
When the promise of independence mutates into decades of unemployment, insecurity, and humiliation, the barracks begin to imagine themselves as moral guardians. The uniform becomes a vessel of frustrated nationalism. Traoré, like other young officers in the Sahel, rose from this environment where insecurity, foreign military dependency, and civilian corruption converged to erode public faith in existing institutions.
But the critical question remains: Can the uniform restore what the ballot lost without succumbing to the same decay?
Traoré’s rhetoric of dignity, sovereignty, and African unity speaks to popular hunger for transformation. Yet rhetoric alone cannot substitute for structural reform. Without institutional renewal, inclusive governance, civic accountability, and the rule of law, the promise of moral leadership risks devolving into charismatic authoritarianism.
Democracy without transformation
Many African democracies replicate Western institutions without embodying African political traditions. Elections, parties, and constitutions abound, but they rarely yield social justice, moral accountability, or community empowerment.
In Traoré’s critique, this is the “colonial inheritance of democracy without sovereignty.” His government’s efforts to nationalise mineral wealth, promote local industries, and reject foreign tutelage resonate with Nkrumah’s vision of self-reliance. Yet the deeper test of Pan-African democracy lies not in anti-imperialist posturing, but in whether governance becomes participatory, transparent, and socially transformative.
Thus, the question is not whether democracy exists, but whose democracy it is. Does it serve the African people or preserve a comprador elite beholden to external financiers and regional oligarchies? True democracy must grow from African realities grounded in consensus, community, and moral leadership rather than donor conditionalities.
Neo-colonial shadows and the militarised mind
African militaries remain deeply embedded in neo-colonial security architectures. Trained under Western doctrines and reliant on foreign weaponry, many officers internalise external definitions of stability and legitimacy. Traoré’s repudiation of French military presence and pivot toward regional and Russian cooperation thus mark a symbolic attempt to reclaim agency.
Yet this shift invites interrogation: Does exchanging one patron for another constitute genuine sovereignty? Can anti-imperialism rooted in nationalism avoid reproducing the same centralised power and suppression of dissent that characterised earlier regimes?
The challenge for Traoré and similar leaders lies in balancing strategic autonomy with democratic accountability, ensuring that decolonisation of the military does not come at the expense of the people’s voice.
Interrogating Traoré’s governance, between renewal and repetition
Under Traoré, Burkina Faso has launched a series of sovereignty-driven policies, establishing a national gold refinery, investing in agricultural self-sufficiency, and promoting regional military cooperation. These initiatives echo Sankara’s revolutionary self-reliance and challenge the dependency logic that has long underpinned African governance.
However, governance under Traoré also reveals contradictions. The extension of military rule by five years, the dissolution of the independent electoral commission, and the concentration of power in executive hands raise critical questions about the sustainability of this model.
A Pan-Africanist analysis must therefore ask:
• Legitimacy: Can a government born of a coup transform itself into a legitimate people’s democracy without first restoring civilian oversight?
• Accountability: What mechanisms prevent anti-imperialist leadership from degenerating into autocracy?
• Reform: Are nationalisations and patriotic rhetoric matched by institutional transparency and civic empowerment?
• Continuity: Does Traoré’s Burkina Faso represent a transitional phase toward people-centred governance or the entrenchment of militarised populism under the banner of sovereignty?
These are not questions of condemnation or celebration, but of interrogation of holding revolutionary language accountable to revolutionary ethics.
The Pan-African mandate: Beyond coup and complacency
Africa’s renewal demands a deeper transformation, one that transcends both the failed democracies of the post-colonial elite and the authoritarian temptations of the barracks. Traoré’s Pan-Africanist posture provides an opening: it rekindles discourse on sovereignty, dignity, and unity. But that discourse must mature into institutional Pan-Africanism, economic integration, shared defence frameworks, and political systems rooted in moral legitimacy.
This mandate requires:
• Building people-centred governance that prioritises dignity over donor dictates.
• Integrating African economies and defence systems to reduce dependency.
• Institutionalising civic participation and regional accountability.
• Reviving Pan-African political education to restore the moral vision of Nkrumah, Cabral, Sankara, Neto, Nujoma, and Nyerere, who all warned that independence without unity is an illusion.
Beyond the mirror; Interrogating the African Union
The coups of the 2020s are mirrors, not miracles. They reflect Africa’s struggle to reconcile sovereignty with legitimacy and liberation rhetoric with institutional decay. Ibrahim Traoré’s rise captures both the yearning for authentic self-rule and the persistent dangers of personalistic power.
Yet one must also interrogate the African Union’s moral and political posture. The AU is quick to condemn coup plotters, yet remains eerily silent when ordinary Africans take to the streets demanding justice, jobs, and dignity. Where is the AU when governments unleash violence on unarmed civilians? Why does it find its voice only after the barracks intervene, not when the ballot and the people’s will are being betrayed?
If the AU is to reclaim credibility, it must confront not only the soldiers who seize power but also the regimes whose corruption, repression, and indifference make such seizures possible. Condemnation without compassion is hypocrisy; silence in the face of suffering is complicity.
Africa does not need more ultimatums from Addis Ababa; it needs action, solidarity, and courage from an African Union that stands with the people, not merely with governments without legitimacy from the people. Only then will the mirror of the continent reflect renewal instead of crisis and sovereignty rooted in legitimacy rather than convenience.
Conclusion: Shape up or ship out
As I heard someone saying, unless we understand that there is a generational apocalypse of format coming, then the old software, if not upgraded, will crush and burn under the weight of the new wave of data that will no longer wait for those pontificating with information that is not easily verifiable by googling. This is a generation raised on algorithms, AI and instant information and will not kneel down nor bow for doctrines that cannot survive a quick fact check nor get tied to hypocrisy where logic is crucified weekly. These are the new digital prophets born with search engines instead of scrolls. This new generation is now swimming in frequencies, and if the old leaders refuse to evolve, they will be outdated fossils in a data-driven generation. It seems the future is in bandwidth, reprogramming politics as we know it. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our employers and this newspaper but solely our personal views as citizens and Pan-Africanists.
