Amid West Africa’s Coups, Faith Leaders Emerge As Pillars Of Stability
In the last decade, more than a dozen coups have shaken West Africa and the Sahel. The military has toppled governments in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea and Gabon, creating a chain of instability that stretches across the region.
Amid this turmoil, religious leaders are emerging as stabilizers who are guiding dialogue and providing a moral compass in societies caught between soldiers and fractured civilian states.
In 2020, Mali saw its first in a wave of takeovers, when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was ousted amid mass protests. Less than a year later, another putsch in Bamako unseated a transitional government. Soon the wave spread to Guinea in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022, and Niger and Gabon in 2023. There were even attempts in Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau.
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What is emerging in response is a moral counterweight. Faith leaders, though not elected, command trust in countries where formal institutions falter. When governments collapse and politicians scatter, they remain.
In Burkina Faso, Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, the archbishop of Ouagadougou, has repeatedly urged dialogue between military rulers and civilians. Burkina Faso staggered through two coups in a single year. In January 2022 Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba pushed aside the old order. By September, Captain Ibrahim Traoré had done the same to him. The ground kept shifting, and patience thinned on the streets of Ouagadougou.
Ouédraogo, speaking in the measured tones of the pulpit, reminded those in power that guns cannot anchor legitimacy. He pressed instead for a national conversation.
Across the border in Mali, Imam Mahmoud Dicko carried his own kind of weight. Once the head of the High Islamic Council, he had already learned to balance sharp critique with the posture of a mediator. In 2020, when public fury rose against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Dicko was there — both as the voice that fanned the protest and the one that tried to steady it. He had the rare ability to rally crowds and urge restraint. When soldiers moved in, he insisted on dialogue. His call for peace carried weight in a nation where religion remains a stronger thread than politics.
The influence has not been confined to Mali or Burkina Faso. When Niger’s soldiers overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023, the rupture left the Economic Community of West African States threatening intervention and Nigeriens deeply divided. In Niamey, the country’s Islamic leaders stepped forward. From the pulpits they called for calm, framing resistance to foreign military intervention a moral stance in defense of Nigerien sovereignty. Their sermons helped steady the public mood in a week when the region seemed on the edge of wider conflict.
Guinea, too, has seen its faith leaders press for accountability. When Colonel Mamady Doumbouya toppled Alpha Condé in 2021, church leaders demanded clarity on the transition. They argued that the people’s hopes could not be mortgaged to indefinite military rule.
Even in Gabon, where a disputed election gave way to a sudden takeover in 2023, clergy were among the first to urge restraint and prevent reprisals against civilians.
The pattern is not uniform. Some leaders are more forceful, others quieter. Still, the conviction remains strong that the pulpit and minbar can serve as civic anchors when state structures collapse. Sermons double as political reminders, Friday prayers and Sunday homilies often carry more resonance than government communiqués.
There are echoes of earlier decades. In the 1990s, West Africa also witnessed waves of coups and transitions, with clergy and imams often pressed into mediation. What is different now is the scale of the overlapping crises. The Sahel is contending with political instability and with insurgencies that have displaced millions. In Burkina Faso, the scale of upheaval is hard to take in. Jihadist violence has emptied villages and sent more than two million people on the move. Churches and mosques alike are left tending to scattered flocks, where the basic hope of survival rests on the thinnest margin of peace.
Mali took a different turn. After the 2020 coup, the regional bloc ECOWAS stepped in with sanctions and pressure. Concessions were demanded, deadlines set. Yet the standoff dragged on, and the country’s civil groups pulled in different directions. What was meant to be mediation often felt like another layer of stalemate.
Yet Dicko’s interventions where he urged both the protestors in the street and the soldiers toward dialogue helped prevent escalation into violent confrontation. His words carried more weight than many politicians. For many Malians, it was a reminder that civic life still had a heartbeat.
Burkina Faso offers a parallel scene. When Traoré seized power in September 2022, Cardinal Ouédraogo did not waver. He pressed for dialogue, calling for a national conversation.
The limitations are real. Religious leaders are not universally trusted. Some are accused of selective silence, others of proximity to power. In Mali, critics say Dicko’s caution sometimes shields the junta from sharper scrutiny. In Burkina Faso, some youth are frustrated by the pace of change and their government’s overall performance. Even with the doubts, a hard truth lingers. Where civilian institutions are weak or broken, the voices of churches and mosques stand out as some of the last anchors against the drift.
What lies ahead is uncertain. If the generals dig in, pulpits and minarets may be muted, their authority brushed aside. But if openings remain in these fragile transitions, faith leaders could still leave their imprint on the civic bargains that take shape.
Joseph Maina is a Kenyan journalist. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and media studies from the University of Nairobi. For the past decade, he has served as a correspondent for various print and digital publications in his native Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa.