West Africa Must Defend Democracy Before the Soldiers Arrive

West African leaders met in Freetown on 19 July 2026, in a country where, decades ago, ECOMOG soldiers fought—and shed blood—to defend democracy. The summit’s formal agenda was regional integration, but its political meaning was impossible to miss. Since the Revised ECOWAS Treaty was adopted in Cotonou in 1993, good governance and political stability have been inseparable from the ambition of building a stronger, more resilient regional community.

That is why the absences at the Freetown Summit mattered. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger were not simply missing from a diplomatic gathering; their absence marked a deeper rupture between ECOWAS’s democratic commitments and a new politics of military-led sovereignty. Guinea’s return to the regional fold only sharpened the contrast. The three Sahelian states have since withdrawn from the Community and formed the Alliance of Sahel States, transforming what began as a crisis of democratic legality into a broader contest over sovereignty, legitimacy and regional cohesion.

West Africa cannot yet say that it has escaped the ghosts of coups d’état. The AES is one reminder, but not the only one. Other warnings are just as potent: shrinking democratic competition within constitutional states, the abuse of constitutional procedures for political survival, and the widening threat of insecurity spreading outwards from the Sahel.

The military takeovers in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso were not inevitable, but neither were they mere accidents of history. To treat them simply as eruptions of ambition by soldiers would be too easy—and dangerously reassuring. They matter profoundly: for citizens in the AES countries, whose democratic freedoms and civic space have narrowed; for states confronting jihadist violence and armed rebellion; and for a region that must ask whether its democratic foundations are strong enough to withstand similar pressure.

The question is no longer whether coups should be condemned. They should be—unequivocally. Military rule is not the cure for democratic disappointment. But condemnation without introspection is not a strategy. The harder question is why, in parts of the region, coups can still attract public sympathy, understanding or even applause. The answer lies less with the soldiers who seize power than with the civilian systems that too often hollow out democracy from within.

Across the Sahel and beyond, democracy that merely reproduces elite interests is losing credibility. When elections rotate personalities without changing citizens’ lives, when institutions exist largely in form, and when political competition becomes little more than the preservation of power, democracy loses moral authority. In such circumstances, a coup can be misread by frustrated citizens as a rupture with a closed system. That is a dangerous illusion, and it does not justify military intervention. But it should force the region into urgent self-examination.

Democracy must be practised, not merely proclaimed. Too often, its language and symbols—elections, constitutions, parliaments and declarations of judicial independence—coexist with the concentration of real power in the executive. When citizens see little meaningful oversight, when legislatures become instruments of incumbency, and when courts are weakened or bent to political will, democratic architecture becomes a façade. Behind it, anger accumulates; left unattended, it becomes combustible.

West Africa must therefore treat the abuse of democratic procedures for undemocratic ends as an early warning sign, not a domestic inconvenience. Constitutional change is not inherently illegitimate. But when constitutions are altered simply because a government has the numbers to do so—especially to prolong incumbency, narrow political plurality or weaken checks and balances—the damage is profound. Such actions may be legal in form, yet corrosive in substance. They create the political oxygen in which military adventurism breathes.

This is an urgent test for ECOWAS. Its condemnations of coups are necessary, but they will continue to sound selective if the regional body appears timid when civilian governments weaken democratic norms. When constitutional manipulation, executive overreach or judicial subordination pass without firm regional censure, sanctions against military regimes can appear less like a principled defence of democracy than punishment after the damage has been done. The defence of democracy must begin before soldiers appear on television announcing a takeover.

The grievances voiced by AES leaders also point to a second failure: the region’s inability to mount a sufficiently united response to the security crisis. Jihadists, kidnappers and armed groups have exploited borders, weak state presence and fragmented national responses. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso face these threats directly, but they are not alone. Nigeria and the coastal states of the Gulf of Guinea also confront spillovers and cross-border insecurity. No country, however large, can defeat such networks alone; smaller states with more limited defence capabilities are even more exposed.

The ECOWAS Standby Force must move from aspiration to operational reality. Delay is no longer neutral; it is costly. West Africa needs a concerted regional engagement strategy backed by a credible joint force, intelligence sharing, border cooperation and sustained political will. Security failure is not only a military problem; it is also a democratic one. Where citizens experience insecurity, abandonment and elite indifference, the promise of constitutional rule begins to ring hollow. Coups then present themselves, falsely but powerfully, as shortcuts to order.

There are lessons close at hand. Senegal and Cabo Verde have shown greater resilience because their democracies rest on stronger habits of accountability, more credible checks and balances, and a more meaningful distribution of power across institutions. They are not perfect democracies; none is. But they show that institutions matter, and that legitimacy grows when citizens believe power can be constrained, transferred and held to account. These examples should be studied and adapted across the subregion, where democratic quality must be inclusive, representative and resilient.

West Africa cannot coup-proof itself by condemnation alone. It must renew democracy before it is broken, defend institutions before they are captured, and build regional security before insecurity becomes an argument against constitutional rule. The AES crisis is not only a Sahelian crisis; it is a warning flare for the whole region. Unless ECOWAS and its member states confront military seizures of power and civilian abuses of democracy with equal seriousness, the region will remain exposed to the next coup—and to the next claim that democracy failed long before the soldiers arrived.

By Anthony Ohemeng-Boamah

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