Reconsidering Africa’s Leadership Crisis and Endemic Civil Conflicts

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue V, May 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Reconsidering Africa’s Leadership Crisis and Endemic Civil Conflicts

Abel Holla, Linnet Hamasi
Chuka University, Kenya

Abstract
In the last hundred years, Africa has remained the axiom for coups d’état and civil conflicts. The insistence of democratically elected leaders to hold on to power has, in some instances, hugely influenced this trend. This article will analyze cases of constitutional violations by African presidents. It attempts to examine the motivation for this prevalent trend. It shall also analyze civil conflicts in African states, examine its possible causes, and identify the linkage between constitutional violations and coups d’état.

Keywords: Afro-pessimism, Coup d’état, Incumbent, Resurgence, Civil Conflict

Introduction

The push for democratization in Africa gained momentum in the 1990s (Bowd & Chikwanha, 2010). By the end of that decade, several countries had started on the African experiment with democracy. Influenced by internal and external pressure, many countries had great hopes for the future. More than twenty years down the line, the situation in an increasing number of African countries is characterized by feelings of dispossession and increased alienation by the public. Such disillusionment is occasioned by the treatment of the public as clients or consumers of democracy rather than its primary stakeholders. The upshot to this is the perversion by dominant political actors of democratic oversight bodies such as the legislature, electoral management bodies, and political parties. Such perversion threatens to reverse the democratic steps taken at the expense of great physical and material sacrifices at the beginning of democratic clamour. The situation is worsened by the seeming helplessness of the international community, partly because of the international principle of non-interference and lack of intervention when there are no risks to core interests (Shannon, Thyne, Hayden, & Dugan, 2015).
Inevitably, attempts at regaining and retaining control by various stakeholders have been witnessed across Africa. In a stark case of dejavu, the turn of the millennium has seen an increase in military coups against democratic governments;

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