What triggers military coups or popular revolts?
By and large – and with reference to Africa – military coups and/or popular revolts occur for the following reasons.
1. When a government under the same leader and key cabinet members stay in power too long. They lose value. It is like wearing the same shirt or skirt or eating the same food every day. People get tired and want a change – sometimes any change. This is what happened with Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Ben Ali of Tunisia, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
2. When the national army feels that it is losing power to the presidential or imperial guard, the former steps in and removes the head of state and the government. In Ghana, the 1966 military coup against Mkrumah and his government was prompted, inter alia, by Mkrumah’s building a strong President’s Own Guard Regiment (POGR) and his attempt to party-ize the military. Both ideas were unpopular with the Ghanaian military officer corps. Although the coup was led by a small number of middle-ranking officers, they had the tacit support of the majority of the officer corps and senior commanders of the police.