Africa woke up again to the unsettling news of another military seizure of power, this time in Guinea-Bissau. The justification offered by the junta was a familiar one: a disputed election. That explanation, however, only scratches the surface of a wider crisis that continues to undermine stability across the continent. Elections in many African countries have become dangerously unpredictable events, not because citizens lack the will to choose their leaders, but because the institutions tasked with managing those choices are often compromised long before a single vote is cast.
The reality, uncomfortable as it may be, is that election management bodies, security agencies, and even some election monitors and observers frequently become actors in the manipulation of results. These institutions, which should serve as the guardrails of democracy, instead tilt the playing field in favor of powerful political interests. When electoral processes are deliberately distorted and outcomes are engineered rather than earned, the inevitable result is public distrust. This distrust quickly escalates into protests, violence, destruction of property, and in some cases, the kind of national instability that creates a vacuum for military intervention.
In moments when the political class pushes a nation to the brink, the Armed Forces become the last institution still capable of preventing total collapse. To stand idly by while politicians drive their countries toward crisis would itself be a dereliction of duty. The military, whether people appreciate it or not, remains the final guarantor of the state. When all civilian institutions fail, when violence spreads unchecked, and when politicians flee abroad with their families, it is the military that remains to restore order and prevent the complete disintegration of the nation. Sudan offers a sobering example. In a country where politicians created rival militias for factional advantage, the national army became the only barrier preventing irreversible national fragmentation once those militias turned their guns on the state.
This reality does not glorify military rule. It simply exposes a painful truth: military coups in Africa are not the disease; they are symptoms of a deeper democratic malfunction. As long as the continent continues to operate democracies that are hollow in form and corrupted in practice, the cycle of coups will remain unbroken. The fundamentals of democracy must be strengthened if Africa is to move beyond the era of military intervention. Electoral bodies must be independent, credible, and shielded from political influence. Security agencies must act as protectors of voters, not tools of intimidation. Institutions must be stronger than individuals, with a judiciary capable of delivering justice that citizens can trust. Political systems must become inclusive enough to ensure that losing an election does not equate to political extinction. And above all, the rule of law must be upheld without fear or favor.
Until these foundations are rebuilt, elections will continue to generate crises rather than resolve them, and the continent will remain vulnerable to military interventions that are triggered not by ambition, but by the collapse of democratic order. The uncomfortable conclusion, therefore, is that military takeovers—however undesirable—will continue to occur whenever political leaders undermine the very democratic structures they claim to defend. If Africa genuinely wants to end its cycle of coups, then it must first end the behaviors that provoke them.
As long as elections remain compromised, institutions remain weak, and governance is treated as a private enterprise rather than a public trust, the military will continue to be called upon as the emergency brake preventing nations from spiraling into chaos. Africa does not need more coups; it needs democracy that works. But until democracy becomes real, military takeovers will remain, in the eyes of many citizens, the last resort when everything else has failed.
Capt. Bishop C. Johnson, US Army (rtd), is a national defense and military strategist and a political commentator.