Bad situation looks set to deteriorate with only jihadists standing to benefit

COUPS, it seems, are all the rage in West Africa right now. Even before the one in Burkina Faso last week, military officers across the region had grabbed power four times in the past 18 months, the highest number of coups in four decades.

With neighbouring Mali and Guinea having previously gone the same way, even those regional nations whose governments are arguably more stable like Cote d’Ivoire or Ghana realise this is no time for complacency say security experts, some of whom are already referring to the area as a “coup bloc.”

While coups tend to be a result of their own local grievances and circumstances, frustration with what is perceived as self-serving governments and leaders has been a common denominator across West Africa of late.

Speaking in a television address to the nation last week, Captain Sidsore Kader Ouedraogo, a leader of the Burkina Faso coup, said they had overthrown president Roch Marc Kabore to “get back on the right track … and to gather all forces to fight for our territorial interest, our recovery and our sovereignty”.

On the face of it that might not seem an unreasonable explanation in a region where weak leadership, corruption, political nepotism, and constitutional manipulation has so often been the order of the day.

But Burkina Faso’s coup could not have come at a more precarious time in a region which is bearing the brunt of one of the world’s fastest-growing Islamist insurgencies. It has also set alarm bells ringing here in Europe and elsewhere given that many of the putschists have fallen out spectacularly with the West since coming to power.

In short, this is seriously undermining one of the biggest anti-terrorism operations in the world involving Western forces, now that they have withdrawn from Afghanistan.

The irony here is that many of these new military juntas in West Africa toppled their country’s governments ostensibly because they had failed to provide security from the jihadist threat.

But now, with these respective juntas likely having their work cut out consolidating power and perhaps even fighting off political rivals, the possibility of a power vacuum arises that Islamist extremists are only too ready to fill.

With state institutions weak and having little reach beyond the cities in this vast region of the Sahel, jihadist groups have stepped into the breach, providing services to isolated communities while others use social media to portray government neglect and fuel discontent over the failure of foreign troops to tackle security lapses.

Combine this with fraying alliances between the putschists and Western

Fraying alliances between the putschists and the West set the scene for other players also to enter this volatile arena – namely Russia

powers and the scene is set for other players also to enter this volatile arena – namely Russia.

“Coup leaders tend to stick together, especially in the face of sanctions from their traditional allies,” said Aanu Adeoye, a Russia-Africa researcher at the Chatham House think-tank in London.

“If they don’t get help from the French, for example, there is a group of Russian mercenaries waiting,” Adeoye warned in a recent interview with The New York Times.

In other words, an already bad security situation could be about to get much worse and only the jihadists stand to gain.