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Should Africa’s Tallest Skyscraper Be Built in a Kenyan Village?
10 min read.The proposed construction of a 61-storey building in Watamu has generated both hopes and fears among local residents, who view the project as either a white elephant with serious environmental consequences or a godsend that will bring much-needed jobs and prosperity to the coastal area. RASNA WARAH examines the pros and cons of this multi-million-dollar project.

If all goes according to plan, construction work on a 61-storey skyscraper – which is being mooted as the tallest structure in the whole of Africa – will soon start in Watamu, a sleepy fishing village and tourist resort about 20 kilometres south of Malindi along Kenya’s coastline.
But lack of clarity on how the developer managed to get approval for the Sh28 billion ($280 million) project is raising concerns about whether this is another white elephant or phantom project. Questions are also being raised about whether the building is economically feasible and environmentally sustainable.
On its website, Palm Exotjca is marketed as an exclusive development with “chic residential suites, premium commercial space, eclectic restaurants and a vibrant casino”. Three Italians are said to be managing the project: The chairman Giuseppe Moscarino is a veterinarian and neurosurgeon from Rome whose passions are “art, architecture and Africa’s extraordinary beauty”; the managing director is Oliver Nepomuceno, who is described as the manager of several commercial and investment companies and joint ventures; and Lorenzo Pagnini is listed as the lead architect.
The main investors in the project are said to be the Italian billionaire Franco Rosso, along with investors from Switzerland, Dubai and South Africa. According to the developers, an engineering firm in India will handle the structural design aspects of the building while a Chinese company will undertake the construction work. Local engineering and architectural firms will also contribute to various aspects of the construction phase.
When completed, the 370-metre-high building, whose shiny artistic exterior will resemble the trunk of a palm tree, will comprise 270 hotel rooms, 189 luxury suites and apartments and social amenities, such as a shopping mall, a business centre, a theatre, a cinema, a nightclub, a fitness centre, a wellness spa, a children’s play area and four swimming pools – all of which invoke images of Dubai or Las Vegas.
The problem is that Watamu is not Dubai or Las Vegas. This fishing village and beach resort with a population of 14,000 barely has the infrastructure to service a level 4 hospital, let alone a skyscraper of this size. MAWASCO, the water utility company, already has problems meeting the water demand in Watamu and there are no signs that it intends to increase supply during the construction phase of the project or when it is completed. The Kenya Power and Lighting Company has promised to upgrade the Kakuyuni sub-station with a 23 MVA transformer and 25 kilometres of an overhead line, but only on the condition that the developer pays for the upgrade, which will cost Sh161 million.
Moreover, Watamu is hardly a vibrant tourist destination and commercial hub along the lines of Rio de Janeiro or Miami. What were the developers thinking when they came up with the idea and how do they expect to fill up all these hotel rooms and apartments?
Other such projects, such as Flavio Briatore’s Billionaire Club in Malindi – which was marketed as “a club for the world’s richest” – also had ambitions to attract the wealthy from around the world, but Malindians have yet to see Bill Gates or the Saudi Prince Mohamed bin Salman check in. On the contrary, Briatore has threatened to sell his other hotel, Lion in the Sun, in Malindi because he says that the unattractive business environment and poor infrastructure in the town are keeping foreign tourists and investors away.
In an article published in Coastal Guide, Issue 20, July 2019, Damian Davies, the general manager of the Turtle Bay hotel in Watamu, questioned the viability of the Palm Exojca project and whether the investors will get a profitable return on their investment. “There are lots of properties for sale in Watamu that aren’t selling; who will buy an apartment in a tower some distance from the beach when no one is buying beautiful beach properties?” he asked. “We don’t want a start-up that for economic reasons isn’t finished: a partially completed skyscraper.”
Red flags
Malindi and Watamu are currently experiencing a slump in tourism. Hotels are either shutting down or scaling down.
Many Italian residents are selling their villas to go back to Europe or to move elsewhere. But there is simply no market for these properties. Those that do manage to sell their houses often do so at below-market rates, mainly to Kenyans from Nairobi looking for a holiday home.
Italian and other tourists are flocking to other destinations in East Africa, such as Zanzibar, which have not been tainted by the threat of terrorism, and which have more superior amenities and infrastructure. The idea that this luxury development will be the magnet that will pull in tourists and foreign investors could simply be wishful thinking.
At a public participation meeting organised by NEMA at the site of the building on 3 October, Mr Moscarino, the chairman of Palm Exojca, explained that this exclusive development will bring another type of high-end visitor to the area and is not competing with the hotels in the vicinity. He added that he was very proud to be associated with the tallest building in Africa.
However, let us say that the project is viable and there is a market for it, this question still remains: Why build such a tall structure in a village that is not a commercial hub and where most buildings are just one-storey tall? Wouldn’t it be incongruous with its surroundings? Wouldn’t it be like building a skyscraper in the middle of a desert? If you have to build the structure, why not build a scaled-down version?
The answer perhaps lies in the fact that skyscrapers are more about ego and prestige than about economics. Very tall structures, such as the Petronas Towers in in Kuala Lumpur and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, are a kind of phallic symbol representing strength and virility. The skyscraper is to the modern world what the obelisk was to the ancient Egyptians – a monument that projects mystical power and status. But is this what Watamu needs?
Kilifi County has given the go-ahead to the project perhaps in the belief that it will generate jobs and stimulate the local economy, but Najib Balala, the Cabinet Secretary for Tourism, is not convinced that this is the kind of project that Watamu requires. He feels that a more suitable location for the project might have been Mombasa or Nairobi. He has also advised the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) not to approve the project. “That 61-storey skyscraper on a small plot in Watamu must not be built,” he is reported to have said.
What raises a red flag is the fact that the Palm Exotjca website lists its address as One World Trade Centre, Suite 8500, New York, but that address seems to be a virtual one intended to impress high-end clients. The other address is a plot number and P.O. Box number in Mombasa, but there is no email or phone number provided. The phone number listed on the website is a Washington DC number that goes unanswered. One concerned resident who has been following up on the matter said: “When we call the phone number listed on the website, no one answers it and has not for over a year. So why is it so difficult to find the real phone number if Palm Exotjca really wants to sell high-end apartments?”
According to residents’ associations and other concerned groups in and around Watamu who have raised their objections regarding the project with NEMA, Vitamefin Limited, the company that is listed as the owner of one of Palm Exojca’s plots in Watamu, was previously registered in the US Virgin Islands. However, the Virgin Islands Official Gazette, Volume XLIX, Number 78, shows that this company was struck off the register of companies on 1 May 2015 for non-payment of annual fees.
NEMA says that it has conducted an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) that shows no adverse environmental or social impacts related to the project. But Augustine K. Masinde, the National Director of Physical Planning in the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning, disagrees. In a letter to the Director-General of NEMA dated 12 July 2019, he raised concerns about the conformity of the proposed development with physical planning laws and zoning regulations. He also said that certain issues, such as the environmental suitability of the parcel of land for the proposed development and availability and adequacy of requisite infrastructure and services, needed to be clarified. “In view of the foregoing, we advise that you suspend the approval of the proposed development to allow proper review and audit to establish its sustainability,” stated the letter.
A memo to NEMA – submitted on 21 July this year on behalf of the Watamu Association, the Kilifi Residents Association, the Kilifi County Alliance, Watamu Hoteliers, Local Ocean Trust, Watamu Marine Association, A Rocha Kenya, Watamu Against Crime, Watamu Property Managers and the Jiwe Leupe Community Association – lists several problems with the project, including:
- The project is disproportionate in scope and scale, both technically and financially. The substrata along the Kenyan coast is highly unsuitable for very tall buildings.
- There has been lack of meaningful public participation by the developers and the ESIA team.
- Watamu lacks the skilled labour force to put up such a structure. The immigration of a large, well-paid skilled workers into Watamu has the potential for significant social, cultural, economic and moral hazards.
- The area lacks the required infrastructure, including water and electricity supply, for such a large-scale project.
Lack of sufficient and meaningful public participation is of particular concern to the residents, as it was with the proposed coal-fired plant in Lamu. In the case of Lamu, lack of public participation was a key consideration in the National Environment Tribunal (NET)’s ruling. In its 26 June 2019 jugement, NET ordered Amu Power, the key player in the proposed Lamu coal project, to halt construction of the plant and to undertake a fresh ESIA for the project. It noted that the ESIA carried out for Amu Power was flawed in one key aspect: it did not involve public participation, which is a constitutional requirement. It noted that lack of public participation was “contemptuous of the people of Lamu”.
Mike Norton-Griffiths, the chairman of the Watamu Association, says that the major flaw in the project is in the planning. He says that nine completely independent projects are buried in the ESIA, each requiring an ESIA and planning permission, and each needing to be completed before the main project. Yet this has not been done.
There are also serious environmental concerns. Watamu is home to the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, the famous Gede ruins and a marine park that is the breeding ground for turtles and other marine life. There are concerns that improper handling of wastewater and sewage from the project – both during the construction phase and when it is completed – could negatively impact the biodiversity in the region.
Simmering tensions
The above concerns were partially addressed on 3 October at the public participation meeting organised by NEMA, which I attended. A Kenyan engineer recruited by Palm Exojca made a detailed slide presentation explaining how the development will deal issues such as wastewater and even birds who could die accidentally by crashing into the tall shiny structure. (Much of this presentation was lost on the local communities attending the meeting, but that did not deter him from going on with the hour-long presentation.)
The meeting, which was attended by NEMA, county government officials, some representatives of residents associations, and a large group of people from the community, at times appeared stage-managed and intended to allay any fears that the project was unviable or environmentally unsustainable.
But what also came out loud and clear at the meeting was that the local residents view the project as a contest between the national government and the county government of Kilifi and between the (mostly British) expatriate community and the Italian investors. Speakers at the meeting emphasised that this was a project supported by the county government and that the national government should not interfere with it. “Those opposed to this project are enemies of devolution and enemies of the people,” said one very vocal community leader, whose statement was met with roaring applause from the audience.
Supporters of the project, including the governor of Kilifi County, Amoson Kingi, believe that the project will bring in much-needed jobs to the area and will boost tourism. Community members at the meeting repeatedly cited employment as the main benefit of the project. (The majority of the local residents will neither be able to afford the amenities offered at Palm Exojca, but they do hope to find low-paid and semi-skilled jobs in the luxury development.)
It is hard to argue with the sentiments of the majority of the local people, who have been marginalised for decades and who suffer from high levels of poverty and underdevelopment. (Kilfi County is among the six poorest counties in the country.) A project like this could change their fortunes in significant ways by generating hundreds of jobs both directly and indirectly. When you have not seen any real development in your area for years, despite the presence of a large numbers of beach hotels, a project like is hard to resist, even amid environmental concerns. As one speaker at the meeting pointed out, “Nobody talked about how the beach hotels in Watamu would affect turtles. So why should this development, which is not even on the beach (it is 366 metres from the ocean) be of concern?”
The project has also unveiled simmering tensions between the indigenous local residents and the largely British expatriate residents. Kilifi North MP Owen Baya, a vocal supporter of the project, claims that the British people living in Watamu are opposed to the project because it will “block their view of the ocean”. But he does not say how the influx of wealthy foreigners into Watamu when the building is completed will affect the local population. Will it give rise to other types of tensions?
There is also the issue of double standards. Someone I spoke with who did not want to be named told me that the Europeans living in Watamu live there only half the year; they spend the rest of the year in Europe. “These people can enjoy First World amenities, like theatres and nice roads and pavements, whenever they want to. But they want Watamu to remain a backwater whose unspoilt natural environment they can enjoy whenever it is convenient for them. But what about the locals who have never been to a cinema or even travelled outside their county? Don’t they deserve a taste of modernity?”
The locals clearly view the Italian investors as a godsend that will bring much-needed employment and development to the area. One MCA even referred to Mr. Moscarino as “our small God”.
“Even London began as a small village,” said another speaker. “We want Watamu to become a city like Dubai.”
Owen Baya, the Kilifi North MP, told the audience that until a hundred years ago even Nairobi was just a swamp, and wondered why there was so much resistance to this particular project.
At the meeting, Mr. Moscarino gained additional points with the locals when he sold the development as a social responsibility project. He told the cheering crowds that the developers will build a hospitality school and a secondary school in Watamu and that up to 2,000 local people will be hired as drivers, carpenters, construction workers and the like during the construction phase. It was obvious that he was exploiting the fact the majority of residents are too poor and illiterate to refuse such a generous offer. His statement was met with loud cheers.
As I left the NEMA meeting, I did wonder whether if, for any reason, the project is not completed – and the promised jobs and schools never materialise – what effect this will have on the local people. Will dashed hopes lead to even more resentment?
We can only wait and see if indeed the local people’s dreams will be realised in five years when the construction of Palm Exojca is expected to be completed. Palm Exojca could either be the catalyst that spurs development in Watamu or the Trojan horse that introduces vices that threaten to destroy a way of life. It could also be a case study in how economic opportunities often trump environmental concerns when it comes to “development”, especially in areas that are poor and marginalised.
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Op-Eds
Africa’s Democracy-Coup Dilemma
The African subject—not necessarily the political elite—is trapped in an endless and heated 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.

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.
Op-Eds
Wave of Coups in Françafrique: Is Africa’s Oldest Autocracy Next?
With widespread insecurity, escalating public discontent, an absence of the rule of law, pervasive poverty, and frail state institutions, Togo is ripe for a coup.

In the wake of a series of coups that have jolted Africa, speculation about which nation will follow is rife. The pioneer of coups in Africa, Togo frequently emerges as a prime candidate in these conjectures. The country’s 1963 coup was the first on the continent under the leadership of Gnassingbé Eyadéma. In 1967, Eyadéma orchestrated another coup and held on to power for the next 38 years. Following his demise in 2005, Eyadéma was succeeded by his son Faure Gnassingbé, who orchestrated his own coup before subsequently holding contested elections that resulted in at least 400 deaths, according to a UN report.
Togo’s vulnerability to military coups stems from its colonial past and its long history of autocratic rule. The country also faces the same socio-political turmoil that has precipitated regime change in other African nations. One of Africa’s poorest countries, with a struggling economy, Togo is also grappling with escalating terrorism, especially in the northern region bordering coup-prone Burkina Faso.
The current semblance of stability in Togo can be attributed to its robust militarisation. While a number of African nations have transitioned peacefully to democratic governance, Togo’s regime has craftily manipulated global perception by positioning Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s non-military son, Faure, at the helm, ensuring the perpetuation of his father’s authoritarian legacy. Faure Gnassingbé’s journey to the presidency defies the archetypal dictator narrative. Educated in military schools during his formative years, he pursued higher studies in economics at the University of Paris Dauphine and an MBA from George Washington University in the US. His ascent in Togo’s political landscape has been swift, becoming Minister of Communication in 1998 under his father’s rule, then parliamentarian, Minister of Public Works, and ultimately president.
Togo has suffered decades of oppression in the iron grip of the Eyadéma dynasty. Gnassingbé Eyadéma is particularly infamous, remembered as one of the continent’s most brutal dictators. Mysteriously disappearing opponents and egregious human rights abuses led to a ten-year suspension of European Union aid between 1993 and 2003. Nevertheless, Eyadéma sustained a puzzlingly close relationship with France, the nation’s former colonial overseer that had acquired two thirds of Togo after World War I.
Recent coups in Africa have predominantly taken place in ex-French colonies. While some observers point to Russian influence, many locals accuse France of endorsing their nations’ most tyrannical leaders. Once a foot soldier in the French colonial army, Eyadéma was instrumental in the 1963 assassination of Togo’s first president, Sylvanus Olympio. Ostensibly a result of military integration disputes, the coup was deeply rooted in Olympio’s efforts to distance Togo from lingering colonial ties, including an audacious move to replace the CFA franc, a French-instituted currency, with the Togolese Franc. The unanimous passing of a bill establishing the creation of the Togolese national currency on 12 December 1962 may have precipitated his assassination just a month later.
Following Olympio’s killing, Nicolas Grunitzky assumed power despite his questionable loyalties and overt pro-French inclinations. His reign was short-lived, however. On 14 January 1967, amidst escalating public unrest and calls for new elections, the same military operatives that had ousted Olympio intervened once again. Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s meteoric rise within this framework was evident when he transitioned from a sergeant to a colonel in three years. While Klébert Dadjo was the initial choice as leader post-coup Eyadéma soon took charge, becoming president in April 1967.
During his time in office, Eyadema maintained excellent relations with France under whose contentious neocolonial strategy, Françafrique, French companies flourished, and French politicians reportedly amassed fortunes through murky deals with African dictators that included financial kickbacks, generous campaign funds, and strategic support to secure France’s position in global politics. French manipulation and exploitation in nations like Togo, Gabon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire have enriched their ruling families while the majority continue to languish in poverty.
The people of Togo have shown an indomitable spirit in the face of dictatorship and repression and the 1990s saw the historic, student-led Movement du 5 Octobre (M05) culminate in a national sovereign conference and the establishment of a short-lived transitional government from 1991 to 1993. A series of massacres committed in April 1991 continue to haunt the people of Togo today.
The 1991 National Sovereign Conference was a beacon of hope for Togo’s future. With Eyadéma’s authoritarian rule showing signs of weakening, a new constitution was passed that conferred more powers on the prime minister while reducing those of the president, introduced presidential term limits and multipartism. But the political atmosphere took a severe turn in 1992 when soldiers, including one of Eyadema’s brothers, attacked the transitional Prime Minister Joseph Kokou Koffigoh’s office, killing at least a dozen people and igniting months of civil unrest as civil servants and students went on a nine-month-long strike demanding democracy and an end to military rule. The repression was so severe that thousands of Togolese people fled the country, creating the first wave of refugees from the West African nation. Despite the challenge to his rule, Eyadéma removed the presidential term limit in 2002 but maintained his dominance, securing another term in 2003.
Following Eyadéma’s death in 2005, the Eyadéma dynasty’s stranglehold on Togo has continued under Faure Gnassingbé’s rule. Living standards remain poor, and human rights abuses mirror those committed under his father’s reign. Within Togo, the Gnassingbé family seems to view political power as their birthright; Faure Gnassingbé revealed in an interview with Jeune Afrique that his father had advised him never to relinquish power. The Togolese took this revelation to heart, particularly when he sought a third term in 2015. A massive wave of protests broke out in 2017, demanding the reinstatement of term limits, a move that was met with brutal repression. The widespread protests led ECOWAS to intervene, resulting in a superficial constitutional amendment in 2019. Term limits were reinstated but with conditions that ensured that the terms that Faure Gnassingbe had already served remained unaffected. He then successfully retained power in the 2020 elections, consistent with the Gnassingbé dynasty’s undefeated electoral history.
The repression was so severe that thousands of Togolese people fled the country, creating the first wave of refugees from the West African nation.
The Gnassingbés do not just run elections; they are the elections. The Togolese were engulfed in despair when Faure Gnassingbé secured his 4th term, realising that by the next elections in 2025, the Gnassingbé family would have ruled for 59 years; a staggering 97 per cent of the country’s citizens have lived under the shadow of a single ruling dynasty – only 3 per cent of the population are over the age of 50.
The discontent isn’t confined to the masses; there is a distinct sense of unease within the corridors of power. Several Togolese military and political figures have been ousted over the past year, including Felix Kadanga, the president’s brother-in-law and former head of the Togolese Armed Forces, known for his brutal treatment of dissidents. Appointed just a year earlier, the widow of the president’s elder brother, Ernest Gnassingbé, was also relieved of her position as Defense Minister. These changes, combined with the arrests and house arrests of other military personnel, underscore the turmoil.
The Togolese people’s longing for democracy is poignant. Their quest has stretched across four generations and six decades. Exhausted by the relentless military rule, many harbour a hope inspired by successful coups in other nations. They yearn for an end to the oppressive rule of the Eyadéma dynasty, even if this means enduring continued military governance. A cocktail of factors usually precipitate coups: widespread insecurity, escalating public discontent, an absence of the rule of law, pervasive poverty, and frail state institutions. In Togo’s case, each box is emphatically ticked.
In many parts of Africa, including Togo, the perception of coups is multidimensional. While globally they are seen as a threat to democracy, coups might represent a glimmer of hope for the masses living under enduring dictatorships. In Togo, where democratic ideals like free elections and freedom of speech have been stifled, coups are sometimes seen as potential catalysts for democratic change. The desire for this perspective arises from decades of enduring media censorship, a silenced opposition, and rigged elections. The masses see coups as a possible means of uprooting deeply entrenched autocratic regimes. The fundamental question for Togo and for the other former French colonies is whether such radical shifts can indeed pave the way for true democracy.
Op-Eds
Are These the Dying Days of La Françafrique?
The widespread anti-France sentiment among the populations of Francophone Africa is the result of nearly 200 years of French meddling in the political and economic affairs of these countries.

France ruined Haiti, the first Black country to become independent in 1804. France is on course to ruin all its former African colonies. It is no coincidence that the recent spate of coups in Africa has manifested in former French colonies (so-called Francophone Africa), once again redirecting the global spotlight on France’s activities in the region. And that the commentaries, especially amongst Africans, have been most critical of France and its continued interference in the region.
This is coming against the backdrop of France’s continued meddling in the economic and political affairs of “independent” Francophone countries, an involvement which has seen it embroiled, both directly and indirectly, in a series of unrests, corruption controversies and assassinations that have bedevilled the region since independence. Unlike Britain and other European countries with colonial possessions in Africa, France never left – at least not in the sense of the traditional distance observed since independence by the other erstwhile colonial overlords. Instead, it has, under the cover of a policy of coopération (cooperation) within the framework of an extended “French Community”, continued to maintain a perceptible cultural, economic, political and military presence in Africa.
On the surface, the promise of coopération between France and its former colonies in Africa – which presupposes a relationship of mutual benefit between politically independent nations – where the former would, through the provision of technical and military assistance, lead the development/advancement of its erstwhile colonial “family”, is both commendable and perhaps even worthy of emulation. However, when this carefully scripted façade is juxtaposed with the reality that has unfolded over the decades, what is revealed is an extensive conspiracy involving individuals at the highest levels of the French government. Along with other influential business interests – also domiciled in France – they have worked with a select African elite to orchestrate the most extensive and heinous crimes against the people of today’s Francophone Africa. A people who, even today, continues to strain under the weight of France’s insatiable greed.
The greed and covetousness that drove the European nations to abandon trade for colonialisation in Africa is as alive today as it was in the 1950s and 1980s. The decision to give in to African demands for independence was not the outcome of any benevolence or civilised reason on the part of Europe but for economic and political expedience. Thus, when the then president of France, Charles de Gaulle – who nurtured an ambition to see France maintain its status as a world power – agreed to independence for its African colonies, it was only a pre-emptive measure to check the further loss of French influence on the continent. In other words, the political liberation offered “on a platter of gold” as a means to avoid the development of other costly wars of independence which, a France depleted by World War II was already fighting in Indochina and Algeria.
The greed and covetousness that drove the European nations to abandon trade for colonialisation in Africa is as alive today as it was in the 1950s and 1980s.
Independence was, thus, only the first step in ensuring the survival of French interests in Africa and, more importantly, its prioritisation. Pursuant to this objective, de Gaulle also proposed a “French Community” – delivered on the same “golden platter” – as a caveat to continued French patronage. As such, the over 98 per cent of its colonies that agreed to be part of this community were roped into signing coopération accords – covering economic, political, military and cultural sectors – by Jacques Foccart, a former intelligence member of the French Resistance during the Second World War who had been handpicked by de Gaulle. This signing of coopération accords between France and the colonies, which opted to be part of its post-independence French Community, marked the beginning of France’s neo-colonial regime in Africa, where Africans got teachers and despotic leaders in exchange for their natural resources and French military installations.
Commonly referred to as Françafrique—a pejorative derivation from Félix Houphouet Boigny’s “France-Afrique” describing the close ties between France and Africa – France’s neocolonial footprint in Africa has been characterised by allegations of corruption and other covert activities perpetrated through various Franco-African economic, political and military networks. An essential feature of Françafrique is the mafia-like relations between French leaders and their African counterparts, reinforced by a dense web of personal networks. On the French side, African ties, which had been French presidents’ domaine réservé (sole responsibility) since 1958, were managed by an “African cell” founded and run by Jacques Foccart. Comprising French presidents, powerful and influential members of the French business community and the French secret service, this cell operated outside the purview of the French parliament, its civil society organisations, and non-governmental organisations. This created a window for corruption, as politicians and state officials took part in business arrangements that amounted to state racketeering.
Whereas pro-French sentiments in Africa, and without, still argue for France’s continued presence and contributions, particularly in the area of military intervention and economic aid, which they say have been critical to security, political stability and economic survival in the region, such arguments intentionally play down the historical consequences of French interests in the region.
Enjoying free rein in the region – backed mainly by the United States and Britain since the Cold War – France used the opportunity to strengthen its hold on its former colonies. This translated into the development of a franc zone – a restrictive monetary policy tying the economies of Francophone countries to France – as well as the adoption of an active interventionist approach, which has produced over 120 military interventions across fourteen dependent states between 1960 and the 1990s. These interventions, which were either to rescue stranded French citizens, put down rebellions, prevent coups, restore order, or uphold French-favoured regimes, have rarely been about improving the fortunes of the general population of Francophone Africa. French interventions have maintained undemocratic regimes in Cameroun, Senegal, Chad, Gabon, and Niger. At the same time, its joint military action in Libya was responsible for unleashing the Islamic terrorism that threatens to engulf countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.
In pursuit of its interests in Africa, France has made little secret of its contempt for all independent and populist reasons while upholding puppet regimes. In Guinea in 1958, de Gaulle embarked on a ruthless agenda to undermine the government of Ahmed Sékou Touré – destroying infrastructure and flooding the economy with fake currency – for voting to stay out of the French Community. This behaviour was again replicated in Togo, where that country’s first president, Sylvio Olympio, was overthrown and gruesomely murdered for daring to establish a central bank for the country outside the Franc CFA Zone. Subsequently, his killer, Gnassingbé Eyadema, assumed office and ruled from 1967 until his death in 2005 – after which he was succeeded by his son, who still rules.
In Gabon, you had the Bongo family, who ran a regime of corruption and oppression with the open support of France throughout 56 years of unproductive rule. As for Cameroun, its most promising, Pan-Africanist pro-independence leader, Félix Moumié, died under mysterious circumstances in Switzerland, paving the way for the likes of Paul Biya, who has been president since 1982. France also backs a Senegalese government that today holds over 1,500 political prisoners, and singlehandedly installed Alhassan Ouattara as president of Cote d’Ivoire.
French interventions have maintained undemocratic regimes in Cameroun, Senegal, Chad, Gabon, and Niger.
Therefore, the widespread anti-France sentiment among the populations of Francophone Africa and beyond is not unfounded, as it has become apparent to all and sundry that these countries have not fared well under the shadow of France. In Niger, where France carried out one of the bloodiest campaigns of colonial pacification in Africa – murdering and pillaging entire villages – and which is France’s most important source of uranium, the income per capita was 59 per cent lower in 2022 than it was in 1965. In Cote d’Ivoire, the largest producer of cocoa in the world, the income per capita was 25 per cent lower in 2022 than in 1975.
Outside the rampant unemployment, systematic disenfranchisement and infrastructural deficits that characterise these Francophone countries, there is also the frustration and anger of sitting back and watching helplessly while the wealth of your country is carted away to nations whose people feed fat on your birthright and then turn around to make judgements and other disparaging comments on your humanity and condition of existence. The people are tired of being poor, helpless and judged as third-world citizens! France is a dangerous country.
It is indeed overdue for France to cut its losses – whatever it envisages them to be – and step back from its permanent colonies to allow the people of Francophone Africa to decide on their preferred path to the future. After nearly 200 years of pillage, the people have good reasons to demand that France should leave. The restlessness and the coups that have become commonplace in the region are symptoms of deeper underlying social, economic and political problems, including weak institutions, systematic disenfranchisement, poverty, corruption and the misappropriation of national wealth. And as we call on France to do the honourable thing and withdraw, we should also rebuke Africa’s leaders who have not only put their interests above those of their people but have also turned the instruments of regional intervention and development (like the AU and ECOWAS) into tools for ensuring their political survival.
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