Military Coups and Press/Public Support

Abstract

The advent of military rule in Nigeria marked a low point of democracy in Africa. Nigeria, after all, was the country that prided itself as Africa’s oasis of democracy. However, the tradition of coups was well established in Africa before the Nigerian Army joined the fray. In the two months before Nigeria’s first military coup on January 15, 1966, for instance, there were at least four such coups in Africa, and two of those were in Nigeria’s West African neighborhood. About 10 days before Nigeria’s coup, the military in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) forced the president to relinquish power. Three days earlier, Col. Bedel Bokassa overthrew the government of the Central African Republic. This coup was itself immediately preceded by one in Congo (Kinshasa) on November 25, 1965, led by General Joseph Mobutu (who in 1972 renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko to boast of his invincibility as a warrior-leader). The tiny West African country of Dahomey (now Benin) outdid all others by having two coups in a little more than three weeks—on November 29, and December 22, 1965—for a total of three coups within two years.