Why Government by Coup d’État is Recidivist in Africa: Niger’s Counter-Coup as Coup against Nigériens

The future of liberal democracy in Africa may not be bright because it has the great potential to unnecessarily generate coups d’état. In international relations, coup d’état is illegal but the illegality is conveniently acquiesced to in protest against bad democratic governance. In order to promote democracy, France, generally supported by other European Union (EU) Member States, made the adoption of democracy a conditionality for the grant of development aid to African countries. President François Mitterrand made this clear at the 1990 sixteen Franco-African Summit, held in the coastal resort of La Baule in southern France. However, this conditionality has been selectively applied, and thus making non-democratically-elected governments to thrive and condoned.

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