For decades, Kibera has been touted as the largest and most famous slum in Africa (even though the former claim is exaggerated – Kibera is home to around 200,000 people, making it smaller than many other slums around the continent). Various celebrities, from former US president Barack Obama to comedian Chris Rock, have visited this informal settlement in Nairobi where people live in mud and tin shacks that lack the most basic amenities, like proper toilets and electricity in their homes. Kibera has also attracted a lot of NGOs that claim to improve the living conditions of the people living there. However, despite their visible presence, Kibera remains one of the poorest and most overcrowded slums in the world, with among the worst living conditions.

Slum upgrading efforts in Kibera by United Nations agencies and others have also largely failed. Kibera has seen three upgrading projects since 2004 but none has significantly improved residents’ lives. The main reasons for this, according to research by Urban ARK, a global research programme, are corruption, poor management, and lack of consultation with the slum residents. UN-Habitat’s slum upgrading programme in Kibera, for instance, which saw 1,200 families move to high-rise housing units, faced lawsuits from residents who claimed that the allocations were made unfairly. Studies have also found that many of the beneficiaries ended up renting out their units (because they needed the extra income or could not afford the repayments) and moving back to the slum.

Efforts to move slum dwellers out of slums have failed for many reasons, the most salient of which is that Nairobi’s urban poor – who work largely in the informal sector – can only afford to live in slums. The average monthly rent for a low-cost housing unit in places like Umoja is roughly 7,000 shillings a month, which is unaffordable for someone earning less than 20,000 shillings, especially when one factors in the cost of food, transport and school fees. In slums like Kibera, rents range from 2,000 to 5,000 shillings a month. (A World Bank study in 2016 found that the average Nairobian earns less than 30,000 shillings a month, an income that cannot service any kind of mortgage scheme, even that for low-income housing.)

Moreover, the majority of slum dwellers view themselves as temporary residents of slums (even if many end up spending their wholes lives there). Their aspiration is to eventually move out of the slum to better housing once their incomes improve or to use the money they make in the city to improve their housing in their rural villages. Slum dwellers in Nairobi do not yearn for better homes in the city; rather, they yearn for higher and steadier incomes (which will facilitate their eventual move out of the slum).

Slum residents in Nairobi also view slum upgrading efforts by the government and other agencies as slum eviction exercises, disguised as upgrading, which is not so far from the truth. In Mombasa, for instance, 520 tenants were evicted from Buxton estate to pave the way for a so-called low-cost housing project that only benefitted the rich and middle classes, as documented by the NGO Haki Yetu. Ninety per cent of the evictees moved to other slums as they could not afford to move into the units. What is even more scandalous is that 90 per cent of the units were allocated to the developer; the County Government of Mombasa got only 10 per cent. This project neither reduced the slum population in Mombasa, nor improved their lives.

Which is why the announcement by President William Ruto that Kibera will be history in ten years because every family living there will be moved to proper housing is probably sending shudders down the spine of every Kibera resident. Experience has shown that slum upgrading initiatives either benefit the developers of the housing or the rich and the middle classes who can afford to buy the upgraded units, as demonstrated by the Buxton case.

Secondly, given the authoritarian style of our current government, and its disdain for public participation or consultation with affected Kenyans, it is very likely that the Kibera project will be mired in secrecy and controversy. Perhaps the intention is not to ensure the residents of Kibera have a better quality of life but to grab the 630 acres of government land they live on, which, based on current market rates is worth more than 60 billion shillings. Which makes many wonder if this project is a state-sponsored land grab.

Conflicting claims to land ownership 

On the other hand, maybe there is a genuine effort by the government to improve living conditions in Kibera, to finally get rid of a slum that has remained an embarrassing eyesore for decades. However, before any plan is dreamed up for the slum dwellers, there must be genuine public participation and consultation with the residents and their associations because the case of Kibera is particularly complicated. For more than a century, the Nubian community living there has claimed that the land on which Kibera sits was given to them by the British colonial government as a reward for their service in the King’s African Rifles, a regiment of the colonial armed forces. However, despite living on the land for more than a century, post-colonial governments did not recognise the Nubian community’s ownership of the land. It was only in 2017 that President Uhuru Kenyatta granted a communal title for 288 acres to the community (that has its origins in Sudan). Any efforts to disenfranchise this much-marginalised group will no doubt be met with a lot of resistance.

Kibera’s land tenure status is further complicated by the fact that the structures in which people live are owned by private individuals who extract rents from the inhabitants. While the government claims ownership of the land, the poor-quality shacks residents live in are built and rented out by individuals who charge anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 shillings in monthly rent. Landlords have made a killing from their slum rentals over the years, yet have done little to improve the structures or to provide basic amenities like toilets. They are likely to resist efforts to deny them this lucrative source of income. Tenants, on the other hand, will likely see the project as another slum eviction exercise. No one wants to live in a slum, but if the alternative proves untenable or has dire financial consequences, then there could be a backlash.

Do cities like Nairobi need slums?

More than two decades ago, Babar Mumtaz, a technical advisor to the UN in Indonesia made a startling claim – that cities in poor countries need slums because slum dwellers are a source of cheap labour that is used to build those cities. Slums reflect the level of economic activity in a city, he argued. Domestic workers, jua kali artisans, construction workers, street vendors – these people who live in slums make cities function. “While we should deplore the conditions in slums, we should see their formation as an indicator of urban success,” he wrote. “They provide a useful role in providing cheap (though not necessarily cheerful) housing for those who cannot or, as likely, will not, want to spend any more on housing than they possibly can,” he wrote.

Mumtaz further argued that slums will always exist as long as wages for low-income groups remain low. “I have yet to hear those wanting to get rid of slums and informal settlements make a plea for wages that allow affordable housing as a solution. As long as gross wage disparities exist (making it possible for cities to employ cheap labour), slums are here to stay,” he said.

No one wants to live in a slum, but if the alternative proves untenable or has dire financial consequences, then there could be a backlash.

Moreover, as I have stated before, Kenya’s urban poor are not interested in home ownership; rather, they are interested in earning higher incomes, getting and keeping jobs, and having access to improved infrastructure, like roads and sanitation. They do not want to enter into long-term mortgage arrangements, especially in an environment where jobs are insecure and low-paying. Any effort to force them to own homes will therefore fail. This is why even if low-cost housing units are built in Kibera, they will end up benefitting the rich and the middle classes.

The world over slums disappear when the incomes of people grow sufficiently enough to enable them to live in proper housing or when the authorities build affordable rental housing that is highly subsidised by the local authority (as happened in London in the 1950s after the Second World War when the authorities decided to get rid of slums and build affordable low-income rental housing). In a market-driven economy like Kenya’s, slums will only disappear when the majority of urban residents can afford better housing, and when the incomes of the general population rise to levels where they do not have to lead undignified lives in shacks. (There are no signs that the government is looking to build public rental housing, which would be a better option given that the majority of Kenyans cannot afford mortgages.)

We as a country are not there yet, and are not likely to reach high- or even middle-income status any time soon. We are still a very poor country with a per capita income of slightly more than US$2,000 a year, among the lowest in the world. The aim of this government should be to ensure that people enjoy incomes that are high enough to enable them to move out of slum conditions. This will automatically reduce the size of slum populations. But with the IMF-imposed policy of forcing higher taxes on struggling citizens, and a government eager to extract as much money from citizens without offering much in terms of employment and business opportunities in return (on the contrary, the harsh tax regime detailed in the Finance Bill 2023 is likely to close down many businesses and lead to massive layoffs), chances are the majority of Kenyans will remain poor for a very long time to come. And continue to live in slums.

The aim of this government should be to ensure that people enjoy incomes that are high enough to enable them to move out of slum conditions.

The Kibera housing project envisioned by the president is either a pipe dream, or a plot to evict Kibera’s residents so that some private developers (and their benefactors in the political class) can make enormous profits. The eviction of the residents will likely lead to the creation of slums elsewhere, and lead to much hardship for people who call Kibera home. It may also become the source of much conflict. Under the current extremely harsh economic conditions of high unemployment, high taxes, inflation, and a tanking economy, implementing such a project will be a foolhardy exercise.

As the two East African countries heighten competition against each other in providing transshipment logistics for the region’s landlocked countries, how the one-year-old Kenya Kwanza government employs its diplomatic tact to navigate a costly non-tariff barrier erected by Tanzania to deny Mombasa Port transit business will put Kenya in the spotlight.

Although the two countries can be applauded for tackling a significant number of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) between them since President Samia Suluhu came to power – more than any previous administration – Tanzania has scored poorly on a single – sinister – NTB; the country has consistently failed to create a geofence on a 15-kilometre stretch of road past the Taveta-Holili One-Stop Border Post that would allow Kenya to use the new Voi-Taveta-Singida-Kobero link road to serve Burundi, Rwanda and some parts of Tanzania instead of the longer Central Corridor Road that connects them to the port of Dar es Salaam.

For a road section to be considered geofenced, it is supposed to have inspection points and cargo passing through it can be tracked electronically for taxation and avoidance of dumping of goods in a country. Geofencing also guards against cargo theft or loss while in transit.

The East African region has embraced this concept for a number of years now. The Northern Corridor route from Mombasa Port to Malaba and onward to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has been fully geofenced and the movement of cargo is monitored through a Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (ECTS) system operated by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). Any slight movement of the goods outside the geofence sends a red alert for immediate action.

The absence of geofencing on that section of the Voi-Taveta-Singida-Kobero road has worked against Rwanda and Burundi, in particular, as they now use the much longer route to import through the port of Dar es Salaam.

To use the Taveta route, which was tarmacked in 2018, importers are forced to use the traditional bonds system that has been abandoned by the region, a tedious manual process that causes costly delays that surpass any benefit that would accrue from using the shortened distance.

Bilateral trade between Kenya and Tanzania was expected to get a major boost when the road was constructed and a One Stop Border Post (OSBP) at Taveta and Holili, hosting government agencies on either side of the border, was opened.

In Kenya, the new road deviates from the Northern Corridor at Voi town, making it the most important link between Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, especially for imports and exports. It was estimated that the OSBP would reduce transit time at the two border posts by 30 per cent.

“It’s a demonstration of the trust between the two countries and that the One People, One Destiny dream is slowly being realised through various East Africa Community initiatives,” Tanzania Authorities put it during the OSBP launch.

The Kenyan section of the Holili-Taveta-Mwatate Road is 135 km long. The section between Voi and Mwatate was not under the project since it was in good condition.

Up to 2003, at least 60 per cent of the cargo destined for Rwanda and Burundi passed through Mombasa and the Northern Corridor before traders began to shun the Kenyan facilities citing congestion at the port and insecurity and corruption on the roads, which Kenya comprehensively addressed in 2007 when it introduced Container Freight Stations (CFSs) that gave the port breathing space to tackle its perennial congestion problem by expanding port facilities.

According to Justus Nyarandi, the Executive Secretary of the Northern Corridor Transit Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA) headquartered in Mombasa, there is a great need to agree to geofence the Taveta Road section, which would allow the use of the single customs facility that allows some goods to be cleared and taxed at the points of entry.

Up to 2003, at least 60 per cent of the cargo destined for Rwanda and Burundi passed through Mombasa and the Northern Corridor.

NCTTCA has already presented this geofencing case to the East African Community Council of Ministers and is now roping in the Commissioners of Customs to compel Tanzania to geofence so that transporters can use Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking Seals (RECTS) instead of the tedious bond application and cancellation processes.

The NCTTCA’s annual Northern Corridor Transport Observatory Report for 2022 indicates that the port of Mombasa handled only 977 tonnes of cargo destined for Burundi, constituting 0.1 per cent of the transit market, and 181,286 tonnes of cargo for Rwanda, representing 4.2 per cent of the market. At over 75 per cent and 12 per cent for Uganda and South Sudan, respectively, these two countries are the biggest transit markets for Mombasa Port.

“The volume of the Burundi cargo passing through the port of Mombasa is too low. If the geofencing is implemented, the volume would go up to 30–40 per cent,” Nyarandi said, adding that by using the port of Mombasa, Rwanda and Burundi would cut the transit distance by between 300 and 400 kilometres, translating to a significant drop in the cost of fuel and reducing the cost of transport, the crossing of two border points notwithstanding.

The new route was expected to open up fresh competition between Kenya and Tanzania, especially for transit cargo. For over a decade now, the two countries have strived to outsmart each other to become the preferred hub for the East African regional transit market. Rwanda and Burundi prefer to use Dar es Salaam Port while South Sudan prefers Mombasa Port.

Due to the emerging strength of the port of Dar es Salaam in recent years, the Kenyan government has initiated a number of reforms to cement its position as the gateway to East and Central Africa. For instance, it has now increased the free storage days before the return of empty containers to the shipping lines from 9 to 15 days.

The Intergovernmental Steering Committee on Ease of Doing Business through the Port Reforms Working Group High-Level Consultative Forum recently made a raft of recommendations that, once fully implemented, will make the Northern Corridor more competitive.

The conveners of the forum were led by the Head of State, President William Ruto, the Council of Governors Chairperson Ann Waiguru, the Cabinet Secretary in charge of the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry Moses Kuria, Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, and Salim Mvurya, Cabinet Secretary in charge of Mining, Blue Economy, and Maritime Affairs.

In a report released in July 2023, the forum tasked all the Partner Government Agencies (PGA) involved in cargo clearance and the private sector to embrace round-the-clock work including weekends to ensure faster clearance of goods and improve cargo dwell time and ship turnaround.

The county governments through which the corridor traverses were asked to stop levying cess or any fees on transit trucks to facilitate international trade and improve the competitiveness of the Northern Corridor.

The report noted that there is a need to review and harmonise the charges levied by various shipping lines and to regulate the arbitrary charges introduced by other cargo interveners that have made Mombasa Port more expensive by up to US$500 per container, the report noted.

“Shipping lines operating in Mombasa Port grant 9 days free period for the return of the empty containers for local imports, 30 days for Uganda, and 15 days for Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan cargo. The ports of Dar es Salaam, Durban, and Egypt grant more days. This makes the port of Mombasa non-competitive and discourages customers from using the facility since they incur demurrage charges due to the shorter free period by shipping lines taking into account the transit distance for DRC and South Sudan,” the report said.

Dar es Salaam Port does not charge shippers Terminal Handling Charges and Lift-on/Lift-off (LoLo) while Mombasa Port charges US$99 and US$148 for a 20ft and a 40ft container, respectively, for the former, and US$30 and US$40 for a 20ft and a 40ft container, respectively, for the latter.

Other unique charges levied by the shipping lines in Mombasa Port include Container Cleaning Charges, Container Management Fees, Logistics Management Fees and Equipment Management Fees.

KRA was also asked to acquire additional drive-through scanners. This will minimise scanning delays and result in efficient cargo offtake at the port of Mombasa, with the task force recommending fast-tracking of the Customs Agents and Freight Forwarders’ Bill that has been developed by the Federation of East African Freight Forwarders Associations (FEAFFA) to professionalise the sector.

Compared to Mombasa Port, Dar es Salaam Port is rapidly closing existing infrastructural gaps and it has gone up in World Bank rankings. Kenya now ranks below both the port of Dar Salaam and Port Berbera in Somaliland.

Of a total of 348 ports surveyed in 2022, the World Bank’s annual Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) ranked Mombasa – the largest port in East Africa – at position 326; Dar es Salaam, its main regional competitor, was ranked at 312.

This compares poorly with the 2021 CPPI report that ranked the port of Mombasa at 296 and Dar es Salaam Port at 316. In the 2022 CPPI report, Kenya also compares poorly with both Djibouti Port and Port Berbera – the two biggest competitors for Lamu Port – which were ranked at 26 and 144, respectively.

Dar Port ranking has been boosted by new infrastructure projects; Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) projects currently at different stages of implementation include the expansion and modernisation of the Indian Ocean ports of Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara, as well as the lake ports of Mwanza and Kigoma.

Dar es Salaam port is rapidly closing existing infrastructural gaps and it has gone up in World Bank rankings.

Other projects in the pipeline include the establishment of Kwala Dry Port, the construction of a Standard Gauge Railway, paving trunk roads and overhauling the operations of the Tanzania-Zambia Railways Authority (Tazara).

The expansion and modernisation of the port under the Dar es Salaam Maritime Gateway Project (DMGP) includes strengthening and deepening of berths 1 to 7 and the Roll-on/Roll-off terminal (berth 0) at Gerezani Creek; dredging of the entrance channel, turning circle and harbour basin; strengthening and deepening berths 8–11. The Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro) terminal, which has a capacity of 600,000 vehicles annually, has already been completed. Last year, the new 320-meter berth broke both its own handling capacity record and those of all other Eastern and Southern African ports – except South Africa – by accommodating the cargo ship MOL Tranquil Ace to discharge 3,743 cars.

Dar es Salaam Port is contributing US$357 million to the DMGP, a World Bank project financed through an International Development Association Scale-up Facility credit. The project, which was initiated in 2017 and will be finalised 2024, will support the financing of crucial investments in the Port of Dar es Salaam with the aim of improving its effectiveness and efficiency for the benefit of public and private stakeholders.

The DMGP will increase Dar es Salaam Port’s capacity from the current 15 million metric tonnes annually to 28 million tonnes.

For the port of Mombasa to remain competitive, maritime experts propose that the government cede its development to the private sector. It took about ten years to construct three berths at Lamu Port with Kenya government funding, a luxury the port of Mombasa may not enjoy owing to the growth in cargo volumes, which almost surpassed 34 million metric tonnes of total throughput last year. Studies show that the port will surpass its maximum capacity by 2028.

Privatising the port would require political goodwill. Efforts to have the port operations privatised have always faced resistance from the region’s politicians and the giant Dock Workers Union (DWU) that has successfully prosecuted the matter in the courts. Privatisation has been wrongly perceived as a strategy to cut down the workforce.

With the lack of capacity at the state-run KPA, Dubai Port World (DP World) has already expressed interest in managing Lamu Port. It has also expressed interest in running other Kenyan ports. Located in Dubai, DP World UAE is at the heart of DP World. It is home to the flagship Jebel Ali Port, the premier maritime commercial gateway and hub to a region of more than 3.5 billion people. It has a huge portfolio managing many ports globally, including in Africa.

For the port of Mombasa to remain competitive, maritime experts propose that the government cede its development to the private sector.

This year, President William Ruto’s administration said Kenya will lease the operations and management of five critical ports through an ambitious KSh1.4 trillion public-private partnership (PPP) aimed at revitalising the country’s maritime industry.

Efforts to increase the port infrastructure at the port of Mombasa have in the past maintained a good pace, however. KPA has completed the construction of Phase 2 of the Second Container Terminal (CT2) and brought on board an additional capacity of 450,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). The new facility increased the Mombasa port capacity to 2.1 million TEUs. It acquired modern cargo handling equipment this year, which has enhanced its capacity to go into the transshipment business should the KRA reduce the customs procedures that have caused shipping lines to shy away from using Kenya’s ports.

KPA recently commissioned the Kipevu Oil Terminal (KOT) which will have four berths capable of handling the import and export of five different hydrocarbon products including crude oil, heavy fuel oil, LPG and three types of white oil products. The KSh40 billion KOT facility will enable Kenya to double its capacity to handle transit products related to energy and petroleum.

The construction of the Standard Gauge Railway connecting Mombasa Port to Naivasha has already been completed. Kenya has also constructed the Inland Container Depot in Naivasha that is serving its Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) transit markets. It has also rehabilitated the MGR line to Malaba, where an ICD is to be constructed.

Last year, the KRA launched the Integrated Customs Management System (iCMS) which has reduced the paperwork cargo clearance period from 24 hours to under 10 minutes. The system was also integrated into the National Open Electrical Single Window System, which is operated by KenTrade, and has fully automated the cargo clearance processes.

As Mombasa Port moves towards maximum utilisation, there is a great need to also focus on Lamu as an alternative port and how it can be connected to the existing corridors by seeking private partnerships. The enthusiasm with which the government has rolled out infrastructure development at Mombasa Port should be replicated in Lamu Port.

Tanzanian has proposed to construct the biggest port in the region at Bagamoyo. President Samia Suluhu last year hinted that she would revive the construction of the Bagamoyo port project that was initiated by the former Tanzanian head of state Jakaya Kikwete, who is now an advisor to the current president. The project was blocked by the late President John Magufuli when he took power. If it intends to remain the regional transshipment hub, Kenya needs to keep its own eyes wide open, considering that other competing ports – Djibouti and Berbera – are rapidly expanding.

There is a well-known, often whispered fact in Ugandan politics that when an official in government or a prominent businessperson is arrested or publicly humiliated in the national dailies for any crime (say corruption, land grabbing, or building in a wetland or other), the question the public asks is not whether there is evidence to the crime—for evidence abounds and that is a foregone conclusion—but who among the powers that be have they offended for their crime to be brought to life. The tested and proved assumption is that, with minor exceptions, every one of these individuals (the people in government and their associates), is a criminal awaiting prosecution. But their crimes come to life only when the powers that be deem it necessary to make them an issue. Thus, even for angelic individuals, the powers that be can easily come up with one crime to tie onto them, and with evidence easily generated—concocted or real—they’ll be maligned and prosecuted. In all plain speech, everyone is innocent and everyone is guilty as long as the powers that be decide it to be so.

Thinking about African governments in the so-called postcolonial time, this Ugandan experience is not lost on Africans when talking about governance, especially as regards the ways in which the international community reacts when changes in governments occur—often as electoral are juxtaposed against coups.  The basic premise is this: in whichever form these governments exist or come about—authoritarian, democratic, coup-driven, monarchic—they are good or bad, not dependent on their character, but dependent on the interests of Western superpowers. These interests then determine the ways in which transitions are narrativized and discoursed in international media, which in turn, carry a great deal of sway on discourses in local presses, and elite circles (at home and abroad).  Stated plainly, there are bad and good democracies just as there are good and bad coups. It all depends on the interests at stake. The African subject—not necessarily the political elite—is thus trapped in an endless, heated, and almost violent loop of meaningless negotiations over terms such as democracy, human rights, constitutionalism, and freedoms that are simply masks of (actually superior) economic and political interests of the Western world.

Europe in Africa: a coup history

Coups have always been good for the Western democratic world. Narrating the story of capitalist expansion across the postcolonial world, in his book, The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions, Jason Hickel captures the ways in which coups became normal in postcolonial Africa dislodging democratically elected governments—as long as the coup-leaders were favourable to western interests.  Hickel narrates that between the 1950 and 1970s, “across the global south, newly independent African states were ignoring US advice and pursuing their own development agendas, building their economies with protectionist and redistributionist policies” (21). Hickel continues that through this period, in the postcolonial states, “incomes were growing, poverty rates were falling, and the divide between rich and poor countries was falling for the first time in history,” (ibid).  But as would be expected, these protectionist policies starved the Western world of free raw materials and profits. They weren’t pleased at all and had to do something about it.

“The policies of the global south governments undermined the profits of Western corporations, their access to cheap labour and resources, and their geopolitical interests. In response, they intervened covertly and overthrew dozens of democratically elected leaders replacing them with dictators friendly to Western economic interests who were then propped up with aid.(22)”

The excerpt above captures the immediate postcolonial time going through the 1980s sometimes overlapping with proxy wars of the Cold War period. I provided a periodisation here. But while these coups might look like ancient history, coup-making and execution have been a core part of French control of West Africa to this day—and has made us suspicious that some of these new coups are part of the same scheme.  The thing called, Françafrique or “French sphere of influence” resulted in 122 military interventions in West Africa and all French-speaking Africa by the French Military between 1960 and 1998.  These included among other things, coups and assassinations of activists and high-profile individuals seeking complete liberation from continued French control. Without entering into the fine details of French military interventions in Africa, French coup plotting has enjoyed the support of the Western democratic world from the United States to Western Europe. In sum, it does not matter whether a government is democratically elected or has come in through a coup. All that matters is that it guarantees the continued flow of cheap raw materials from the African continent to the Euro-America.

The good coups of modern history

Egypt, 2012

An election in 2012 in Egypt ended in the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammad Morsi.  The Muslim Brotherhood coming to victory put the United States in a difficult position especially since Egypt borders Israel, and the American weren’t sure about how the Muslims Brotherhood foreign policy would be towards Israel.  Although President Morsi was a product of a democratic process—the much-celebrated adult universal suffrage—this was a bad democratic result in the eyes of the Western world.  Not too long, there would be protests in Egypt against the newly elected government. How was that so?

To understand these protests, one has to return to Iran in 1953, when protests against the popular Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh spread across Tehran.  As we learned years later, there was nothing organic about the anti-Mossadegh protest, but the United States and UK plotting from inside the American embassy in Tehran. After one year, President Morsi would be disposed of in a similar Mohammad-Mossadegh manner. On 3 July 2013, through a coup, covertly supported by Israeli and American intelligence, democratically elected President Mohammad Morsi was overthrown. One would think that the American government, headed by democrats—supposedly willing to die on the altar of democracy—Barack Hussein Obama, refused to call the military removal of President Morsi a coup.

Even when Senator John McCain visited Egypt and actually called the overthrow of President Morsi ‘a coup d’état,’ the Obama government refused to follow the urgings of this eminent American.  In response, quoted by CNN, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff argued:  “If the United States formally calls the move a coup, it would have to cut off $1.3 billion in aid… would limit our ability to have the kind of relationship we think we need with the Egyptian armed forces.”

This response openly ignored any claims to the ideals of democracy, but rather focused on the American economic and security interests as is tradition.  On the tenth anniversary of the coup, a story published in Foreign Policy magazine on 3 July 2023, confirmed that “Obama gave the Egyptian military what amounted to a green light to overthrow the country’s first-ever democratically elected government.” It did not even matter that the new military government, in the midst of their takeover,  openly gunned down 51 people in cold blood in the capital, Cairo for simply chanting support for Muslim Brotherhood.  In a normal “democratic” world, this would have caused a major fallout over abuse of human rights. Instead, the US simply urged the new government to quickly return to a “democratic order,” like nothing outstandingly anti-human rights had happened.

Pakistan, 2022

Recently, it was confirmed that the United States, working through the Pakistan military pushed for the ouster of Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, because he had exhibited friendship with Russia at the beginning of Russian-Ukraine conflict. Imran Khan remains perhaps the most popular—and yes, democratically elected—prime minister in Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto. The US-instigated coup against Khan was to balance their political power-play, in which they sought to isolate Russia. It wasn’t about democracy or any human rights claims. In cutting-edge extensive reporting by The Intercept, a document nicknamed “Cypher,” which demonstrated how America directly threatened Pakistan—specifically, Prime Minister Khan—over its radically neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It documents a subtle but clearly effective mode of coup-making: a vote of no confidence, just has happened with Prime Minister Mosaddegh in 1953 Iran.  Please note that to remove a sitting president through a “vote of no confidence” in a parliament, actually signals the presence of a strong “democratic culture” and constitutionalism in any polity. Consider then that the United States is actually exploiting Pakistani’s democratic maturity to undermine Pakistan’s stability.

The Intercept, citing from Cypher, reported a meeting between America’s Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. Threats to the ambassador were delivered to Prime Minister Khan and members of the Pakistan military, who understood these threats really well, started working around the clock.  Donald Lu threatened: “People here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.”  Then the Assistant Secretary went on and suggested that “if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister.” Secretary Lu threatened further, “I think it will be tough going ahead,” going on to say Pakistan risked isolation from Europe if Prime Minister Khan remained in office.

This meeting between Lu and Pakistan Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan took place on 7 March 2022. The following day, March 8, Khan’s opponents moved with a procedural issue towards a no-confidence vote in the Prime Minister. Because he occupied the office of prime minister, Khan received the threat and offered to make them public.  While he claimed US involvement in the no-confidence vote, the Pakistan courts—in on the coup—could not allow him to make the documents known to the Pakistan people (again, a bold statement about Pakistan’s matured democracy).  Three months down the road, on 2 October 2022, Prime Minister Khan was removed from office through a no-confident vote.

While it is leading opposition figure Shehbaz Sharif who became prime Minister after Khan, the Pakistan Military remains the most powerful entity in the entire pushing and shoving. The Intercept reported that “Shaken by the public display of support for Khan — expressed in a series of mass protests and riots” in the period that followed his ouster, “the military sought to strengthen itself. It “enshrined authoritarian powers for itself that drastically reduce civil liberties, criminalize criticism of the military, expand the institution’s already expansive role in the country’s economy, and give military leaders a permanent veto over political and civil affairs.” You would think these developments would cause the democratic world to issue pronouncements as regards civil liberties and human rights. But alas, neither of this has happened. In a word, the coup against Prime Minister Khan, and the resultant abuses of human rights and freedoms were good for the Western “democratic” world, because, not only did they support it, but all these abuses served to protect their interests, which are above any democratic idealism.

An enduring intellectual-political dilemma

The simple premise that governments are good or bad dependent on the interests of Western superpowers remains difficult to see as it is deftly disguised in plenty of enchanting prose: whenever coups happen—as they have excited the continent in recent times, especially in West Africa—they are derided as bad, should not be celebrated as they are a poisoned chalice; ought to be prevented, and calls are made for an immediate return to a democratic order.  I cannot shake off the feeling that these coups have been derided this much because they don’t really represent the interests of the Western world. There are no grey areas but a simple formular: coups are bad, democracies are good—and whatever it takes, we ought to work hard to “perfect” our democracies.

These ahistorical, simplistic, colonial positions are sustained because of four main reasons: (a) Countries and continents have come to be seen as independently contained units and so are the world’s continents. That while local African actors have business and other dealings with the rest of the world, they have incredible levels of agency and need to choose democracy over its problematic opposite: coup leadership. That events in their countries are often entirely products of local ingredients. Consider also that (b) the new technologies and practices of colonialist extraction and control—most of which the coloniser has so deftly depoliticised and extravagantly technocratized appear benign and malevolent. Items such as aid, free trade, banking regimes, WB and IMF recommendations, conservation initiatives, etcetera, all are part of the goodness of the Western world, and need to continue to thrive under a democratic order.  The African elite has been conscripted to this depoliticised, disguised colonialism. How do you persuade a corporate individual who earns well from an international conservation body or an NGO worker, or a grant recipient academic that they are involved in a colonial franchise? The other reason (c) is that we are all products of the colonial school, and our education determines the reach of our imagination and dreams, and our vocabulary and eloquence.  This has been complemented by (d) the colonizers mastery of popular cultural tools, especially through cinema and the Internet, which crucially control public opinion, and determine what becomes understood as fact or fake news. Even with so many more recent crimes and deceptions of the Western world (not the least Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, and earlier ones as Chomsky and Herman demonstrate with what they called “the propaganda model”, a great deal of African political and academic elite still considers the western world, especially the so-called democratic western Europe and the United States as benevolent, generous and truth-talking entities.

It has therefore become difficult to see the reality that democratic regimes, principally, guarantee endless Western exploitation of the continent, the same way an anarchic, or coup-generated regime has been narrativized.  Neither government guarantees absolute goodness for the African subject. However, democracies, inexplicably, retain intellectual and media goodwill.  In sum, it has become difficult to appreciate the colonial-laden dilemma Africa is presented with when responding to coups on the one hand, and welcoming extractivist democracies on the other—as we endlessly fail to appreciate the fluidity, and ‘possibility of reset,’ and the radical questions that coups enable us to ask—in these moments of restlessness—in the search for the soul of Africa’s independence, and reclaiming the exploitation and use of our resources for our own benefit.

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This article was first published by the The Pan African Review.