‎Democracy under siege: how West African governments are closing in on opposition parties

A regional pattern, not isolated incidents
Across West Africa, a common thread has emerged in 2025 and 2026: governments of very different stripes, elected and military alike, are converging on the same toolkit to manage opposition. Arrests on vague public order charges, prosecutions for online speech, suspension of parties ahead of elections, and outright dissolution of coalitions have become recurring features from Lomé to Conakry to Bamako. Human Rights Watch's 2026 World Report found that leaders in several West African countries deepened crackdowns on freedoms through 2025 as they consolidated their hold on power, with journalists, activists and political opponents targeted for their speech across the Sahel in particular.

Togo: a constitutional coup and a bloodied streets

Togo offers the starkest case.
A constitutional overhaul adopted in 2024 created a new "President of the Council" post with no term limits, and Faure Gnassingbé, in power since 2005, moved into it in May 2025, effectively sidelining direct presidential elections in favour of a parliamentary system that critics call a mechanism for indefinite rule. When protests erupted in Lomé over June 26–28, 2025, security forces responded with lethal force; civil society groups counted seven dead and more than 60 arrests, and authorities barred even a requiem Mass for one of the victims, signalling that public mourning itself would be policed.

The government has since criminalized unauthorized gatherings and warned organisers of "heavy legal sanctions." As recently as May 2026, opposition figures were raising the case of poet and activist Honoré Sitsope Sokpor, jailed again within months of his release under judicial supervision, which opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre described as arbitrary detention.

Côte d'Ivoire: prison time for a TikTok video

In Côte d'Ivoire, the run-up to the October 2025 presidential election saw roughly 1,658 people arrested according to Amnesty International. Ibrahim Zigui, a digital activist with the opposition PPA-CI with hundreds of thousands of social media followers, was seized by armed men from his home in September 2025 after urging Ivorians to protest an election candidate list, held in pre-trial detention for months, and ultimately sentenced in May 2026 to five years in prison and a substantial fine for "inciting insurrection," despite a public apology issued months earlier. His lawyer has called the sentence excessively harsh and plans an appeal.

Guinea: parties suspended, leaders jailed
Guinea's junta has taken a more structural approach, reportedly suspending two of the country's largest opposition parties, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea and the Rally of the Guinean People, from political activity ahead of the 2025 elections. Former Prime Minister and opposition leader Ibrahima Kassory Fofana was jailed on corruption charges, while opposition figure Aliou Bah received a two-year prison sentence, a pattern observers say has made Guinea one of the harshest environments for opposition politics on the continent.

Sierra Leone and the sub-region's newest law

Even Sierra Leone, generally seen as more stable, detained the All People's Congress secretary-general Lansana Dumbuya for a night in February 2026 after a speech questioning the transparency of the 2023 election results, invoking a 2022 law regulating political speech and conduct. He was released without formal charges being specified, but his party suspended participation in parliament in protest.

Mali and Burkina Faso: opposition dismantled outright

In junta-ruled Mali and Burkina Faso, the space for formal opposition has effectively been closed altogether, with journalists, activists and critics arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, or conscripted, according to Human Rights Watch's assessment. In neighbouring Niger, former President Mohamed Bazoum remains held without trial following the 2023 coup, and further east in Chad, opposition leader and former prime minister Succès Masra had his 20-year sentence upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2026, after a trial Human Rights Watch has repeatedly characterized as politically motivated.

Ghana's own reckoning
Ghana has not been immune to this conversation, and its own democratic credentials are increasingly being tested against this regional backdrop. Domestic civil society voices, including the Media Foundation for West Africa, have flagged a documented pattern of arrests targeting opposition figures and activists, some involving retractions and apologies issued well before arrests followed regardless. The New Patriotic Party has escalated its response by petitioning diplomatic missions accredited to Ghana over what it calls the weaponization of state institutions against opposition voices. For a country that has long branded itself West Africa's democratic anchor, the comparison to its neighbours is not a flattering one, and it raises a legitimate question about whether the use of criminal law against political speech, regardless of who is in government, is compatible with the reputation Ghana has spent decades building.

What connects the cases
The mechanisms vary by country, constitutional engineering in Togo, defamation and cybercrime statutes in Nigeria and Ghana, party suspension in Guinea, outright military dissolution of coalitions in Chad, but the underlying logic is consistent. Incumbents facing genuine political competition are increasingly choosing legal and security tools over the ballot box to manage that competition. For a region that spent the 2000s and 2010s held up as a comparative democratic success story against its neighbours in Central and East Africa, the trend line matters well beyond any single country's borders.

References
Human Rights Watch, "West Africa: Further Crackdowns by Military Juntas" https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/02/04/west-africa-further-crackdowns-by-military-juntas

International Policy Digest, "Togo's Constitutional Endgame and the Streets That Pushed Back" https://intpolicydigest.org/togo-s-constitutional-endgame-and-the-streets-that-pushed-back/

AllAfrica, "West Africa: Bloody Crackdown On Protests in Togo - 7 Dead, Over 60 Arrested" https://allafrica.com/stories/202507020038.html

Africanews, "New opposition coalition rallies in Togo" https://www.africanews.com/2026/05/10/new-opposition-coalition-rallies-in-togo/

AllAfrica, "West Africa: Activist Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for 'Inciting Insurrection'" https://allafrica.com/stories/202605270047.html

ModernGhana, "The Politics of Opposition in West Africa: Between the Ballot Box and the Prison Cell" https://www.modernghana.com/news/1491736/the-politics-of-opposition-in-west-africa-between.html

AllAfrica, "West Africa: Opposition Party Executive Released After Spending a Night in Detention" https://allafrica.com/stories/202602180033.html

Adomonline, "From Adenta Kumi to Abronye: The growing list of opposition arrests since 2025" https://www.adomonline.com/from-adenta-kumi-to-abronye-the-growing-list-of-opposition-arrests-since-2025/

Human Rights Watch, "One Year on Since Arrest of Opposition Leader in Chad" https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/05/15/one-year-on-since-arrest-of-opposition-leader-in-chad

West African Voice Network, "Chad's Supreme Court Upholds 20-Year Sentence Against Opposition Leader Succès Masra" https://www.wavn.org/chads-supreme-court-upholds-20-year-sentence-against-opposition-leader-succes-masra/

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