Thank you very much, Sa’eed. It’s a pleasure.

Yeah, well, I think in your introduction, you described that period as dynamic but turbulent. It reminds me of something someone once said: “There are decades when nothing happens, and then there are days when decades happen.” The Nkrumah period was one of those times—so much political, social, and economic transformation was packed into such a short span.

One of the most significant aspects of that era was precisely what you mentioned: the deliberate effort to break away from the colonial economic structure, which had locked African economies into mono-crop, primary-commodity-export dependence. The entire economic model was designed to ensure that African countries remained dependent on a narrow set of raw material exports—cocoa, gold, timber—while industrialization and value addition took place elsewhere. The Nkrumah government actively sought to change this. Industrialization was the key mechanism for trying to break this cycle. You’re absolutely right in characterizing it that way. Now, to what extent did it succeed? First, let’s highlight some of the key shifts that resulted from this strategy.

A crucial first step was establishing state control over the domestic dimension of the primary commodity-export economy. Whether it was cocoa or other key resources, there was significant public investment to ensure stability and predictability. Farmers were guaranteed a minimum price, ensuring a stable income floor. But it wasn’t just about cash crops or export commodities—food production and the broader agrarian structure were also incorporated into the strategy. However, at its core, this policy sought to wrest control of the foreign-exchange-earning export sector from European merchant houses that had long dominated it.

To achieve this, the government built an entire infrastructure of economic coordination—buying centers, internal trading systems, warehousing, grading mechanisms, agricultural extension services, and research institutions to support agricultural modernization. This was a systematic approach to economic transformation, not just a series of isolated policies. A key part of this strategy was ensuring that raw materials were processed domestically rather than exported in their unprocessed form. Industrial plants were established to process cocoa at various stages—chocolate factories, cocoa butter and oil refineries, and other manufacturing facilities. This ensured that Ghana retained more value from its own resources instead of simply shipping them abroad for others to profit from.

But industrialization alone wasn’t enough. A state-led intervention in agriculture was also necessary. This meant not just price support and subsidies, but also ensuring that local industries absorbed some of the output. Instead of everything being exported raw, a growing share of agricultural production was directed toward domestic manufacturing. The goal was to create a self-reinforcing cycle, where local production fed into local industries, which in turn supported local workers and consumers.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without state control over finance. You cannot finance industrialization at this scale unless you have public banking and national control over development finance. The establishment of state-owned banks and development finance institutions ensured that resources were directed toward industrial growth rather than speculation or foreign interests.From this perspective, the Nkrumah period saw a remarkable level of economic innovation. Even conventional economists like Schumpeter have argued that late-developing economies require a higher degree of institutional innovation. In Ghana’s case, this necessity was clear. Today, we often hear buzzwords like “disruption,” but back then, real economic structures were being disrupted in profound ways.

A crucial consequence of this strategy was that the economy became less dependent on external markets. Domestic investment, demand, and consumption began to play a larger role in driving growth. This had important implications for income distribution, savings, and reinvestment, creating stronger interconnections within the national economy. At least on paper, it was a progressive intervention—one that challenged the existing economic structures rather than reinforcing them. It was radical and counter-cyclical, meaning it moved against the dominant global economic trends, rather than following them.

At the same time, the level of coordination required for this strategy to succeed was immense. Institutionally, there needed to be alignment between state agencies, economic planners, traders, farmers, and industrialists. This degree of state and institutional capacity-building was a major challenge. If everything had simply been left to the free market, such coordination wouldn’t have been necessary—but then again, nothing transformative would have happened. Today, we tend to underestimate the importance of institutional capacity. Soft infrastructure—the institutions, policies, and governance mechanisms that underpin an economy—is often overlooked. But now that our region is experiencing economic and political turmoil, we should recognize the immense value of those elements.

And on that note, let me end this part of the discussion with two significant points.First, once you introduce new skills and institutions into the economy, once you attempt to harmonize different interests and expand domestic economic capabilities, you naturally shift the weight of national economic growth. Under Nkrumah, domestic economic activity became a far more significant driver of national development than it had been before, or than it is today. This shift had a direct impact on welfare levels in society.

You mentioned welfare earlier, and yes, economic transformation of this kind necessarily required improvements in living standards. If local consumption is critical for sustaining industrialization, then you need to invest in the workforce that will power that transformation. That means a skilled and stable labor force, which in turn requires significant investment in education, wages, and working conditions.

At the same time, if the economy is being driven by domestic consumption, then it cannot rely on simply importing cheap labor or suppressing wages. You cannot push wages to the bottom if you genuinely aim to sustain a growing, consumer-driven economy. The so-called race to the bottom—where workers’ wages and rights are continuously eroded—was not compatible with the economic strategy of the Nkrumah era. And this is the key contrast with today. I am not saying that exploitation did not exist under Nkrumah—of course, capitalism always involves exploitation of labor, no matter the model. But there is a difference between an economic strategy that requires uplifting labor and one that depends on its degradation.

Today, economic growth is increasingly reliant on cheap labor, deregulation, and informality. And to sustain that, the deliberate degradation of labor has become a necessary condition of the system. That is a fundamental shift. Poverty and inequality certainly existed back then, but the overall trajectory was different. There was a relative upliftment of the working and laboring classes, not as an act of benevolence, but as a necessary feature of the economic model.

Beyond economics, there were also significant political and social changes. Increasing the weight and influence of urban workers, professionals, and technical experts in the national workforce created a society that was structurally different from what came before. When I was growing up, for example, being a banker or a big trader might have made you wealthier, but your social status was not necessarily greater than that of an engineer working in the public sector.

There has been a real reorientation since then. In Nkrumah’s time, the steady expansion of a well-paid, urban workforce year after year meant that labor had growing political weight. Trade unions, professional associations, and other collective organizations had real influence in national affairs. Their ideas and their interests mattered politically in a way that is not the case today, when economic fragmentation has left people looking out only for themselves. Today, people are desperate to prove that they are not being political, even about issues that are fundamentally political. But back then, you had far greater potential for participation from below, even in cases where you had a one-party system. Whether or not these participatory mechanisms succeeded is another question, but the intention was there.

Ultimately, this was an era of bold and ambitious innovation, grounded in the real economic challenges facing Ghana. Given the weight of those challenges, it was necessary to be that ambitious. And in the process, progressive social dynamics emerged—the expansion of education and technical skills, the rise of a politically influential urban workforce, and the growing weight of professional associations in national life.

Above all, the biggest contrast between then and now is this: Economic growth under Nkrumah did not rely on weakening labor, cheapening wages, or impoverishing farmers. No matter how our governments speak today, that is the reality of the present system. And I hope that as we continue this discussion, we can demonstrate just how stark the difference is between then and now.

Okay, well, first of all, the main group that was upset by Nkrumah’s policies was, of course, those who had been dominant in the economy before. That included a combination of transnational interests, which, during the colonial period, had enjoyed uncontested control and capitalization of the economy.

They weren’t totally displaced—that would be an exaggeration—but they did lose ground. Take state finance, for example. At the time of independence, about 99 percent of banking, insurance, and financial services were controlled by British banks. And those banks had a deliberate policy, as was the case in Nigeria and many other parts of Africa, of not lending to local businesses. The reason was clear: If local businesses were properly financed, they would challenge British and European monopolies.

So, under Nkrumah, there was a reversal—a shift toward state banking and financial intermediation, which introduced new mechanisms for financing economic activity. This was a major shift, and it disrupted what had been a very lucrative system for certain actors. Beyond the transnational interests, there were also sections of the upper merchant class, including domestic money lenders, who had essentially functioned as adjuncts to the British system. Their privileged position declined, even if they weren’t impoverished or directly dispossessed. In relative terms, they lost out.

At the same time, new economic entrants were emerging. This isn’t a caste system—economic structures evolve, and new elites form. But that doesn’t mean the old economic networks disappeared. If you trace these structures back—through the merchant classes, ruling families, and even the networks built during the slave trade—you find a remarkable degree of continuity. Many of the families that had benefited under colonial rule still had deep economic and political roots, and they weren’t necessarily going to accept a diminished position without resistance.

Exactly. Intergenerational wealth is always intergenerational in that sense. So from that point of view, there were those who felt displaced. That’s not to say that the old merchant classes and traditional chiefs didn’t want independence—they did. Of course, they wanted it. Every ruling group or elite wants a state that serves its own interests first. The difference is that they wanted independence on their own terms, under conditions they could control.

The real issue was that the leadership of the nationalist struggle—figures like Nkrumah and his allies—did not come from those old elites. Instead, they emerged from lower-middle-class backgrounds and working-class elements. Many of them were what the elites themselves called the “baranda boys”—the ordinary people, those who lived on the margins of the established power structures. That was something the old elites couldn’t accept. So they opposed everything. Take the hydroelectric dam project, for example. It was supposed to provide electricity, not just for social welfare and progress, but as a foundation for industrialization. Yet they opposed it. But the irony is that, despite their political opposition, once those projects were completed, they recognized their value and found ways to benefit from them.

Given the massive public investment that had gone into Nkrumah’s economic agenda—particularly the state-led industries and infrastructure—the regimes that followed him did not completely dismantle what he had built. Instead, they diversified it. What that meant, in practice, was privatization. Some industries were transferred into private hands, either domestically, where sections of the elite enriched themselves through legal means, or internationally, where foreign ownership increased as part of efforts to renew ties with global capital.

So while the state capitalist model—with its emphasis on light manufacturing, energy infrastructure, and state provision of key services—wasn’t completely dismantled, its foundation was undermined. This created a political dilemma for the post-Nkrumah elites. The number of urban workers and their associations—the very groups that had grown under Nkrumah’s system—remained intact. The coup did not weaken them directly. But once privatization started, things changed. Privatization meant “cleaning up the books”—cutting costs, laying off workers, redirecting resources from the public domain into private hands. Workers suffered as a result. This created intense political turmoil, because the structures that could have resisted these changes had not been weakened, yet the new regime was pursuing policies that directly harmed them.

That was one of the key reasons for the instability throughout the 1970s. The 1970s could have been different. It’s not a coincidence that after the Nigerian Civil War, there was, at least for a time, an economic boom in Nigeria—especially during the early years of the Gowon administration. That boom was largely driven by the rise in global commodity prices, particularly oil. Many people attribute that oil price increase to the Arab-Israeli war, but the truth is, it was also part of a broader shift in global economic relations. During Nkrumah’s time, the effort to assert state control over key domestic industries was mirrored by international efforts to challenge the dominance of Western economic interests.

Across the Global South, commodity-producing countries were forming alliances—you had organizations like OPEC, the International Cocoa Organization, and the International Coffee Organization. These weren’t just symbolic—they represented real economic coordination that Western powers had to contend with. So if, in that period, cocoa was getting record prices, and gold was getting record prices, why did Ghana still experience economic turmoil and collapse? The answer, I think, lies in what I just described: the social conflict introduced by privatization. The political struggle between those pushing for privatization and those resisting it created a period of chaos and instability. One side or the other had to win—it couldn’t remain unresolved. So when the people who overthrew Nkrumah took power, they essentially represented a continuity regime—from the military rulers to the civilian government of the Second Republic, all the way until 1972, when yet another military coup brought in a new leadership under the banner of “accountability.”

The first thing they did was appease the working classes—the very groups that had been sidelined by previous governments. But this happened in a period when the underlying economic crisis remained unresolved. The kind of economic problems that had emerged before the rise of neoliberal free-market policies had not been solved.

I don’t want to complicate the discussion too much, but the key point is that the crisis persisted, and political power kept shifting between factions without actually addressing it. The most crucial issue was that those who opposed dismantling the state sector had not been politically or socially weakened. This created a dilemma for any government that came into power, as it had to govern in a system where privatization efforts clashed with entrenched interests. That’s why Ghana tottered from crisis to crisis throughout the 1970s. This instability didn’t mean that the economic foundation built under Nkrumah was thriving. On the contrary, it was deteriorating, being whittled down, distorted, and corrupted. But at the same time, it remained in place and continued to shape the economy.

The problem was that while these structures could block further reforms, they were no longer capable of driving the country forward. This led to a state of stagnation and economic decline. One example of this is public investment and state finance. Throughout this period, state-led investment kept rising, but it wasn’t producing results. When the first global recession hit in 1979, bringing Nigeria’s economic boom to a halt, it also severely impacted Ghana. Then, in 1982, another major crash triggered a debt crisis. Without getting into too many details, the point is that this was a period of global economic downturn, and every African and Third World country suffered. It was a global recession, so everyone took a hit.

But even during this downturn, public investment in Ghana kept increasing. Today, common economic wisdom tells us that when there is an economic crisis, the government should cut back spending, balance the books, and reduce its financial commitments. But in those days, it was the opposite. In 1978–1979, for example, public capital investment in the economy reached 28 percent—an extremely high figure, almost on par with what you’d expect in Southeast Asia. The problem, however, was that this investment wasn’t directed into new technology or new sectors that could diversify the economy and create new dynamism.

In other words, the policy choices may have been misguided, but the fundamental idea—that public investment is necessary for economic renewal—was not incorrect. Even when economies are in serious crisis, the idea that governments cannot invest in public infrastructure, industries, or economic renewal is completely false. We’ve seen this even in the biggest economies in the world—after the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, governments poured money into bailouts, saving industries, banks, and corporations.

Yet in our case, in Africa, we are always told that when we face a crisis, the answer is to squeeze our people even further—to cut spending, increase austerity, and submit to external financial controls. We need to completely reject this logic. Whether as a theoretical position or, more importantly, as a practical political reality, part of moving forward must involve challenging these economic falsehoods, which have now been enshrined as common sense—as if they were some kind of unquestionable, God-given truth. It’s totally false, and we must refuse to accept it.

So basically, you had all these different elements coming together—the radicalization of middle-class sentiment and the growing frustration of the working classes and others below them. This, I think, is what pushed the military to the brink. When society is shaken to that degree, it causes cracks even at the top levels of power. The ruling elite starts to lose confidence—some believe they should repress the opposition more harshly, while others think it’s time to back down and offer concessions. The illusion of an unshakable monolith cracks.

And in Ghana’s case, that’s exactly what happened. By 1978, the head of state, General Acheampong, was overthrown in a palace coup by his own officers. The new leadership—a group of army chiefs and senior officers—recognized the growing unrest and announced plans to transition to civilian rule. This is how the Third Republic came into being, directly resulting from the mass opposition to the Union Government idea, which had made it clear that the military could not rule indefinitely.

But the generals weren’t interested in real change—they were simply trying to recycle the old politicians, hoping to give them a peaceful retirement where they could enjoy their wealth without disturbing the system. For the political elite, this was a satisfactory outcome—they could now return to power officially. For the rest of the population, especially the working classes and lower ranks of society, this was not enough.

What did they get out of it? The right to put a piece of paper in a ballot box every four years? That wasn’t nearly as meaningful as real economic change. And so, instead of calming down, the population interpreted this concession as a sign of weakness. They smelled blood—they saw that the ruling class was losing control—and that emboldened them. I’m not saying that they had a clear plan of where to go or what exactly to do next, but the very fact that the government had been forced to make a concession made people even more determined to push further.

Exactly. And so, as the philosopher Gramsci would put it, society had entered a real stalemate. The ruling class couldn’t continue in the same old way, and the lower classes refused to accept it. But at the same time, the lower classes didn’t have a clear agenda for what came next. They were strong enough to neutralize the old order, but not strong enough to fully break through and create a new one.

From that perspective, the balance of power in society was already in deep crisis. Take voter participation, for example. People often talk about the declining turnout in the Fourth Republic, but even in the Third Republic, voter participation was shockingly low. Ghana had been under military rule for seven years, and this wasn’t just any military rule—it was brutal. The military regime that took power was far more vicious than the one that had overthrown Nkrumah. It lasted longer, penetrated deeper into society, and provoked mass resistance from students, trade unions, and the general population.

You would think that after such repression, when the time finally came for a transition to civilian rule, people would greet it with enthusiasm. But when the Third Republic was inaugurated, the election that brought Hilla Limann to power saw the lowest voter turnout in Ghana’s history—just 26 percent.

Why? Because the population already knew what was coming. They could see that the same old recycled politicians, with their tired rhetoric and outdated visions, had nothing new to offer. Meanwhile, people were already creating their own forms of resistance and organization from below. These weren’t yet fully developed movements, but in strategic areas of society, you could see the emergence of insurgent institutions.

It was in this context that a section of junior military officers, led by Rawlings, mutinied against their generals. Their message was clear: “You cannot simply hand power over. We need a house-cleaning exercise before you go.” This is what catapulted Rawlings into national prominence in May–June 1979, just before the scheduled elections that were meant to inaugurate the Third Republic.

We always joke with Nigerians about how our histories mirror each other. Your first coup was January 1966, ours was in February 1966. You transitioned to civilian rule in October 1979, with Obasanjo handing over to Shagari, and at the exact same time, Ghana was going through its own transition. But right before the June 1979 election, when everything seemed set for a return to civilian rule, an eruption happened.

This wasn’t just any coup—it was an expression of mass frustration, the possibility of popular intervention in national politics in a way that no election could offer. Elections alone couldn’t give people the same power, participation, and self-determination that they had just experienced through direct action. By the time the election finally took place, it was already stillborn—the lower classes had identified with Rawlings as the representative of their turmoil and their upsurge.

And this is the key point: By the time the Third Republic was born, it had no real power. The only way it could have established control was by crushing the trade unions, smashing the junior ranks in the military, and restoring all the old hierarchies. But it couldn’t do that. In fact, Limann’s party was the successor to Nkrumah’s CPP, so they tried to cloak themselves in radical rhetoric, even though the state was in no position to pursue radical policies. But the real order of the day—the only way to restore profitability, administrative authority, and economic stability—would have been to brutally repress all the insurgent forces.

They were completely incapable of doing that. Even when they made small hints in that direction—suggesting that inflation required higher interest rates or currency devaluation—their own party voted against the budget out of fear. By 1980, even sections of the military and police had started forming what they called defense committees—self-organized groups that functioned like workers’ councils, directly electing their own leadership and determining their own actions. This was reminiscent of Russia in 1917, a moment when people inside the very institutions of the state were starting to take control.

And then you had a general strike by industrial workers in Accra in 1980. It wasn’t just a protest—they occupied Parliament for days. The striking workers took control of the building, and even the parliamentary kitchen staff supported them, cooking meals for the strikers. At that moment, the streets had more power than Parliament. This wasn’t just some theoretical idea—it was happening in real life. Rawlings himself later put it bluntly: Power was lying in the streets.

It’s a very pithy way of putting it, but it’s true—power really did lie in the streets. And in that kind of situation, there were only two possible outcomes: Either you get a brutal counterrevolution, a Bucharest-type general who crushes the uprising in blood to restore the old order, or you get the insurgent movement from below re-establishing a new system. In the end, that’s what seemed to happen.

I say “seemed” with emphasis because Rawlings, while being persecuted by the government as a symbol of all the turmoil, had both immense popular support and a real personal crisis—his life was clearly in danger. The state cracked down on him hard, deploying relentless repression, but the discontent wouldn’t go away. Students were up in arms, traders were in revolt, and the government was lurching from crisis to crisis. By the end of 1981, Rawlings and his allies took power in a coup, but the very makeup of the group that led it tells you just how weak the state had become.

Rawlings had been decommissioned from the military, meaning he wasn’t even a soldier at the time, and of the eight people who led the coup, not one was an active-duty officer. Half of them were civilians. How does something like that happen? A group of former officers and civilians take over, and no one resists? In theory, the coup should have been crushed within minutes. So why didn’t that happen?

The answer became obvious when support flooded in. Students poured into the streets. Trade unions backed the coup. Instead of resistance, the population rallied behind them. Why? Because the underlying social crisis had never been resolved. And at some point, that crisis had to be settled—either by smashing the insurgent forces and restoring the old order or by transforming society altogether.

Normally, when ruling elites feel threatened, a faction of the top pushes back and leads a counterrevolution. But Ghana saw something unusual—Rawlings himself became the counterrevolution. He came to power backed by the very forces that had risen against the system, which put him in a unique position. He could crack down on the movement that had supported him in a way that no traditional member of the old ruling class, whether military or civilian, could have ever done. Is that making sense?

Every government survives on a balance of consent and coercion, and that balance shifts depending on the circumstances. But in Rawlings’s case, he didn’t need the level of repression that a member of the old guard would have. He already had the trust of the people who had overthrown the old order. First, he used them to neutralize the old elite, and once his position stabilized, he turned against them. When they started demanding too much, he cracked down, then gradually brought elements of the old, defeated ruling class back into the system, incorporating them into his new order.

That’s why I say when social forces neutralize each other, even a weak state apparatus can rise above them and consolidate power. This is exactly what Rawlings represents—he wasn’t just a product of the uprising, he was also the figure who stabilized it and ultimately repressed it. And because of that, he was able to push through privatizations and dismissals that no other faction of the Ghanaian ruling class could have attempted. A civilian government or a military leader from the old guard would have faced too much resistance, but Rawlings? People accepted it from him. Yes, there was repression, but there was also the feeling that this must be for the national interest. People thought, “It can’t be a bad man like Rawlings doing this—it must be for the greater good.”

Yes, because people saw him as one of us. That was the perception. But let’s not forget, there was no clear agenda for what “us” actually meant or where the country should go. All people knew was that the thieves, the generals, and the corrupt elite had to go. They knew what they were against, but what they were for was far less defined. When Rawlings took power, he wasn’t just seen as part of the movement—he was seen as its savior. People literally called him Junior Jesus, the redeemer of their struggles. Given the stalemate in society, he had a level of political leeway that no one else could have had. And the more experienced members of the global ruling class recognized that immediately.

I remember the Financial Times, the house paper of the British ruling class, ran a tiny two-paragraph report on the coup. Back in Nkrumah’s time, an event like this would have warranted a whole center spread, but by the time of Rawlings, Ghana was seen as a collapsed state—insignificant on the global stage. The article barely made an impression, buried in the back pages, but it made one crucial point: “Rawlings has come to power. His extreme popularity gives him a chance to undertake reforms that no one else can.”

Now, we all know what they meant by reforms. If you had shown that article to Rawlings that day, he probably would have laughed at the idea that he was about to implement the agenda of foreign powers. But the reality of his position, the pressures he faced, and the relationships he had to navigate put him in a place where he could get away with things no one else could have. In the name of “bringing sanity back into the system,” he led the privatization of state enterprises that were deemed corrupt or inefficient. He was the one who broke the back of the radical movement, and in doing so, he won credibility with foreign investors, the IMF, and the global financial elite.

The long and short of it is that Ghana entered a strange situation. On one hand, there was a wave of deindustrialization, though to be fair, many African countries, including Nigeria, went through the same thing. But in Ghana’s case, because the state had owned such a massive share of the economy, the scale of the rollback was far more severe than in any other sub-Saharan African country. The social dislocation that came with it was immense.

At the same time, this economic restructuring didn’t just destroy industries—it also weakened the traditional centers of social power. Student organizations, trade unions, and industrial workers—groups that had once been powerful—were systematically dismantled. But neoliberalism didn’t just require breaking the radical forces—it also required rehabilitating sections of the old ruling class, specifically those willing to work with Rawlings and his circle. So, in a way, the ruling class itself was reconfigured. You had new entrants into the elite—people like Rawlings himself—and you also had a recycling of the old guard. These two forces merged, and that’s what we see reflected in Ghana’s two-party system today.

It was a mix of both. First, you had the narrative that Ghana had collapsed because of corruption and mismanagement, so the country needed a rebirth—a reset—with hard work, sacrifice, and purity of vision. That idea attracted idealistic leftists, lower-middle-class professionals, and technically competent people who weren’t part of the old deadwood of the state bureaucracy. In the early years, these people formed a kind of quasi-bureaucracy around Rawlings, allowing him to bypass traditional institutions. Of course, within those traditional institutions, some old bureaucrats quickly made peace with the new order—because if they didn’t, they would have been bypassed forever.

And Rawlings had the power to do it. This was a government that had sacked hundreds of thousands of industrial workers, some of the most powerful people in the country. If they could do that, then removing a few civil servants was no problem. That’s how the bureaucracy was reconstituted—with a mix of new, highly motivated technocrats and old hands who had been forced to adapt. This wasn’t just true for the state bureaucracy—it also applied to the economy. While industrialization was collapsing, Ghana still had major natural resources, the state-owned mining institutions, but they had been deliberately run down and were now ready to be sold off at bargain prices. So naturally, foreign investors flooded in.

If you were a mining engineer or a macroeconomist in Rawlings’s government, you might think, “Actually, we can negotiate a better deal with these transnational companies than before.” It was a technocratic elite that saw itself as bridging the old statist model with new market realities—even if that meant mass layoffs and the loss of social protections. That’s why the system had so many contradictions. Many of these new leaders came from left-wing organizations, but at the same time, miners and workers who had been part of those same organizations were now being laid off en masse. This hybrid structure, this lack of clear ideological direction, gave Rawlings far more room to navigate the transition than any other leader could have had.

And in the end, the economy was revived, but at a heavy cost. Wages had been devalued, making it cheap to restart production, but the country’s economic base had shifted completely. The old reliance on primary-commodity exports wasn’t just restored—it expanded far beyond what it had been before. To get foreign exchange quickly, cocoa production was pushed hard. But look at what happened with timber—the pre-felling of forests reached scandalous levels. The entire forest reserve system was wiped out in record time, just to generate cash. And this was good for capital, good for foreign investors, good for private Ghanaian capitalists. The configuration of the economy changed entirely, but it worked—Ghana was one of only two African countries that, from the 1980s into the early 21st century, consistently had year-on-year real GDP growth.

Well, success depends on who you ask. You started this conversation by saying Ghana seems more stable now, but also more boring. But stable for whom? It’s certainly stable for the intergenerational ruling class—for people like Nana Akufo-Addo, whose father was president, or John Mahama, who is now president again but whose father served in Nkrumah’s first government. Even Mahamudu Bawumia, who just lost the election, comes from that same elite—his father was Mahama’s father’s colleague in Nkrumah’s cabinet.

These aren’t newcomers like Rawlings was in 1979. We’ve come full circle—back to the old ruling families, the old chief-class elite. It’s a system that now resembles the dynastic politics of South Asia—like Indira Gandhi succeeding Nehru, or the political families in Bangladesh and Pakistan. But the real question is: What price has been paid for this so-called stability?

Because, yes, Ghana has grown economically, but who has actually benefited from that growth? The wealth has gone in three directions. First, a massive chunk of it has left the country entirely. The story of foreign capital draining African wealth is not new, but the sheer scale of what transnationals extracted from Africa during the commodity boom years [2002–2014/15] was staggering—even worse than in the colonial period. UNCTAD [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development] has published multiple reports on this, showing how much of Africa’s wealth was siphoned off.

But because the boom was so large, even local elites who participated in it gained in absolute terms, even if their share of the wealth remained small compared to the global players. That’s why we saw real estate booms, financial speculation, and the rise of local capitalists. So the second direction the wealth flowed was into the pockets of a small, ultra-wealthy local elite.

The third direction is inequality—it deepened to an extreme degree. Look at Nigeria—by 2018, it had overtaken India as the country with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty, even though India’s population is six or seven times larger. At the same time, Nigeria’s total wealth is higher than ever before. A recent World Inequality Report showed that in both Nigeria and Ghana, the top 1 percent controls about 33 percent of all national wealth. Now, let me give you a statistic that shows just how much Ghana has changed. At the beginning of the Rawlings era, precisely because of the turmoil and the stalemate in society, inequality was at its lowest point in history. I’m not making a moral argument about whether that was good or bad—I’m just stating a fact.

Take the public sector, which was where entrenched power lay at the time because the economy was state led. The ratio of the highest-paid person to the lowest-paid person in the public sector was 1.7 to 1. In other words, the highest-paid public worker didn’t even earn twice as much as the lowest-paid worker.

Yeah. It was a Ghana Statistical Service report on public-sector pay. But let’s fast forward to today. Just last year, another public-sector pay report came out. Now, let’s be clear—we’re not even talking about private-sector salaries, financial-sector earnings, or mining billionaires. This is just the public sector, which actually has the most stable and solid working conditions for ordinary people in the country.

And yet, today, the ratio of the highest salary to the lowest salary in the public sector has exploded to 89 to 1. And that’s just basic income—we’re not even including allowances, perks, official residences, travel stipends, drivers, security details, or undeclared wealth.

So, yes, Ghana has grown. Yes, it is more stable. But the way in which wealth has been distributed has been catastrophic for the majority of people. And it’s not just about income inequality—the environment has been ravaged too. Look at what happened with timber, mining, and galamsey [illegal small-scale gold mining]. The destruction of forest reserves, the expansion of extractive industries, the sheer environmental devastation—it’s worse than ever before.

The difference between now and the Nkrumah era is that back then, economic growth—even if uneven—at least expanded access to basic resources for a broader part of society. That logic is completely gone. The system today cannot and will not deliver for the majority of people.

So, yes—by neoliberal standards, Ghana is a success story. But this is what success looks like. This is what structural adjustment delivered. And if anyone is still dreaming that Africa can develop under this model, they need to wake up.

The very same former president, yes.

Exactly. And that’s the contradiction—you’re right to point to it. How do we explain this stability, even as we see growing discontent in various sectors of society? You mentioned the galamsey protests over environmental degradation, pollution, and land destruction. We’ve also seen economically driven protests happening more frequently, yet the party system itself remains impervious to all of this.

Well, I think the answer lies in the fundamental unity of Ghana’s ruling class. Despite the differences between factions, what has united all ruling elites since Rawlings took power is their shared commitment to the liberal model. Whether military or civilian, Rawlings or his successors, NDC or NPP, they all accept that the economic model will not change. This goes back to the question I posed earlier—who was going to win in society? Would the demands for more welfare, greater redistribution, and worker power be crushed, or would the old order be reimposed? Rawlings successfully restored the old order while creating space for new sources of economic growth, but in doing so, he demobilized the very forces that had once challenged it.

I don’t mean demobilization in a purely quantitative sense, as in fewer workers are unionized or fewer students are politically active. I mean something deeper. Take trade unions—they are supposed to represent working people, but working people now include millions in precarious, informal, or part-time jobs. There’s no reason why trade unions shouldn’t be mobilizing these people, yet they don’t. Instead, they accept the logic of neoliberalism—they see unemployment as inevitable, as a result of structural adjustment rather than something they could organize against.

And here’s the real irony—if anything, the working class has actually grown. Most people’s only chance at a decent life is through wage labor. Self-sustaining subsistence agriculture is shrinking, and informal workers have no access to stability or security. The objective basis for working-class politics is stronger than ever, but the political institutions that should organize them have retreated. That’s not just true for trade unions—it applies to student organizations, civil society, and professional associations.

Compare this to the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, when workers, students, or professionals fought, they weren’t just fighting for higher wages or better working conditions. Of course, those things mattered—but they always linked their struggles to a broader vision of society. When trade unions opposed the Government in the 1970s, they weren’t just fighting for their own sectional interests—they were fighting against an authoritarian political settlement. Today, that has fundamentally changed. You see unions and social groups saying, “We are non-political.” They argue that their role is purely economic—to negotiate for higher wages, go on strike if necessary, and that’s it. Anything beyond that is dismissed as “too political.”

The irony is that the so-called liberation of Africa in the 1990s was actually the reverse of liberation. When countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and others returned to multiparty democracy, it was the result of massive struggles—pro-democracy movements, labor strikes, student uprisings. And this all happened before the fall of the Berlin Wall. People forget that—Africa was at the forefront of these democratic transitions. I remember Omar Bongo in Gabon saying, “The winds from the East are shaking the coconut trees,” as if all this agitation was coming from outside Africa, from some foreign influence. But that wasn’t true. These struggles were organic—they came from within.

Yet the tragic paradox is that while people fought for political liberalization, they never questioned economic liberalism. And that split in consciousness is what shaped the system we live under today. On the one hand, people have accepted the liberal political framework—embracing democratic rights, governance structures, and formal political participation. But at the same time, neoliberalism has trained them to see the economy as untouchable, as something that shouldn’t be interfered with unless it directly affects them in a personal way. This has led to a profound fragmentation of political agency—a situation where everyone is struggling, but no one is uniting these struggles into a larger movement for systemic change.

That’s the real issue—there is no political force offering a common pole of organization, something that can bring together the various subaltern interests and harmonize them into a collective push for transformation. And in the absence of that, the political elite is left with the field entirely to itself. They are the only ones with real organizational capacity—they have perfected their electoral machines, mastered patronage networks, and streamlined their vote-buying operations. And unlike in the past, when politicians at least had to hide their wealth, today, in the era of privatization and neoliberal legitimacy, wealth is seen as a sign of efficiency. Political elites are now less afraid than ever to flaunt their riches. They can buy votes, manipulate regulation, control the media, and dominate elections, not because they are inherently strong but because there is no systemic opposition capable of contesting them at their level.

That’s not to say struggles don’t exist. Everything you mentioned—protests, worker uprisings, resistance against environmental destruction—these are all real. But they remain fragmented, localized, and disconnected, without a unifying force to bring them together into a larger transformative movement. And yet, the possibility for such unity exists all the time. I’ll give you an example. Just last year, before the election, there were three moments when the government was completely stopped in its tracks. And this was a government that had become indifferent to public opinion, a government that was used to driving through its agenda with single-minded arrogance. It pushed everything through, no matter the opposition—and yet, on certain issues, it could not proceed.

Take galamsey, for instance. The last government oversaw a massive expansion of small-scale mining, granting more licenses to domestic capital than ever before. Now, why did this happen? Because capitalism in Africa, and neoliberalism in particular, has actually been a success—and we are now living with its consequences. That’s the hard truth. The expansion of artisanal mining, the growing dominance of domestic capital, and the deepening inequalities—this is not the failure of capitalism in Africa. This is the fruit of its success.

Think about it—a mining boom means enormous profits. But industrial, transnational mining companies have the capital and technology to extract deeper and harder-to-reach gold deposits. Meanwhile, millions of desperate unemployed people are willing to do anything for a livelihood. So what happens? Small-scale miners, backed by local elites and traditional chiefs, carve out their own space in the economy. They rally the unemployed, acquire low-level mining technology, secure land from chiefs, pay bribes to the military for protection, and start digging for gold. From their perspective, it’s logical—if the resources are there, and if the government is already licensing industrial mining on a massive scale, why shouldn’t they also get a piece of the action?

So the government gave out far more small-scale mining licenses than ever before. If I recall correctly, before this government, there were around 200 licensed small-scale mining operations. But in just six or seven years, the government issued around 3,000 more licenses—an exponential increase. And in its last month in power, in just one week alone—between January 2 and January 7, right before the handover, the government issued another 300 small-scale mining licenses. That tells you everything about how deeply embedded the economic and political configuration of power is, especially at the local level.

This kind of fusion of economic and political interests below the national government runs very deep—it extends across different sectors and regions. We see similar dynamics in conflicts like those between herders and settled farmers, which in many ways resemble what’s happening in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. We now know that these resource conflicts have actually killed more people than some of the most infamous mass violence episodes in Africa, yet they rarely even make the news. What does this tell us? It tells us that the fractures in our societies are deepening. And here’s where we come back to the political weakness of trade unions and other potential counterforces.

Take the example of the general strike threat before the election. When trade unions threatened to strike against a new mining law—a legislative instrument that legalized mining in riverbeds—the government backed down within 24 hours. That shows how much potential power these unions still have. If they were serious about organizing beyond their current narrow base, if they mobilized the vast pool of informal and unorganized workers, they could provide a unifying force—the spine of a broader social movement that could challenge the existing political order.

But right now, no one is organizing for that. And without that kind of organized force, everything remains fragmented. Think about it—if university lecturers don’t see it as their business when students are being forced to pay higher fees, or if health workers accept that hospitals are being privatized while patients are mistreated, or if electricity workers fight against privatization but at the same time demand extra payments from poor communities just to fix a public electricity meter, then where is the basis for a collective struggle?

This is the real issue. People’s lives are shaped by real alternatives. If we are having this conversation, it’s because we have real means of communication—the internet, phones, actual technology that makes it possible. But if I said, “I’m jumping in a helicopter now, let’s meet in the sky and continue this discussion,” you would say, “That’s absurd.” Why? Because it’s not a real alternative. And that’s why the real issue in Ghana is not the resilience of the ruling political parties. It’s the absence of an alternative force that can challenge them in a meaningful way.

Now, there is something else happening—a growing disillusionment with electoral democracy itself. Of course, there has always been opposition to governments—that’s why elections exist. But this is different. For the first time, there is a much more widespread critique of the entire political class—a sense that they are all the same and that the system itself is broken. This sentiment has always existed, but today, it is more pronounced, more organized, and more widespread than before. This is what differentiates the new wave of youth movements from previous ones. Five or ten years ago, people might have protested against specific governments. Today, more and more people see the entire ruling class as unfit for purpose.

That opens up the possibility of radicalization—the possibility of connecting different struggles, linking different constituencies, and forging a broader movement for systemic change. That hasn’t happened yet, but the conditions for it are becoming stronger. Look at the structural power that trade unions still have. Beyond the mining sector, we saw other moments where they stopped the government in its tracks. For example, there was an attempt to privatize major hotels in Accra, handing them over to a powerful foreign hotel chain. The government pushed the plan forward, but within less than a day, it was forced to back down completely. Then there was the debt crisis. The government, following the logic of IMF-backed structural reforms, decided that as a sign of good faith, it would devalue domestic debt first before touching foreign debt. But pension funds, which held a significant share of domestic bonds, pushed back.

The government thought it could impose a haircut on pensions, assuming it would go through without major resistance. But the unions and pension fund managers simply said no. And that was it. The government backed down. What’s crucial here is that the most powerful domestic and foreign actors supported the government’s plan—the IMF, foreign embassies, multinational investors, and the donor class were all behind it. It seemed like a done deal. And yet, when trade union leaders lifted a finger, the whole thing collapsed.

And the irony? They didn’t even mobilize their members. They didn’t campaign publicly. They simply issued a few statements—and that alone was enough to stop the government. So there’s real power there. If multinational corporations are making massive profits from mining, oil, and gas, it means that even though 100,000 miners might have been laid off, and only 10,000 remain, that 10,000 has not lost its structural power. In fact, its per capita power has grown—those 10,000 workers now hold as much leverage as 200,000 did before.

But the question is—will they connect with the displaced miners? Will they link up with the millions in the informal mining sector, the galamsey workers, who exist outside the formal system? Right now, the big transnational mining firms push for a ban on galamsey—and many in the official mining sector support it. But I say, if you just “ban” galamsey, what happens to the two or three million people whose livelihoods depend on it?

The pastoral and agrarian conflicts we see across the continent—like those in Nigeria’s Middle Belt—would only intensify. So instead of a simple ban, what if we said: “All public lands should be nationalized and placed under local, democratic control”? What if land ownership were transferred to local governments and communities, allowing farmers, herders, miners, and hunters to sit down and collectively decide how to manage land and resources? What if they had an elected committee—not dominated by chiefs, MPs, police, or district appointees—but a genuinely democratic, bottom-up popular assembly?

That would completely transform the political and economic landscape. And this is exactly the kind of thinking progressives should be grappling with—not just big slogans, but the nitty-gritty reality of how our economies are structured. Because right now, the existing economic structure privileges certain sectors and activities, and in doing so, it demobilizes, fragments, and divides everyone else. We need a concrete alternative—something that not only challenges these structures, but also builds a basis for uniting diverse social interests.

And in the process of harmonizing those interests, we would unleash a new wave of innovation—one that would far surpass the innovations of the Nkrumah period. Because let’s not forget—Nkrumah’s innovations were top-down. What we’re talking about here is bottom-up transformation, driven by popular initiative, rooted in mass democratic control from below.

In this kind of bottom-up movement, every major progressive social agenda could be integrated—women’s equality, youth empowerment, ecological sustainability, environmental protection—all of it could be woven into a broader political and economic transformation. And is this possible? I think it is. Because despite the apparent hegemony of the ruling political parties, when you look closely, you see the cracks in the system.

Take John Mahama, for example. He lost the 2016 election by a record margin—an overwhelming rejection by the electorate. But eight years later, without changing anything, without offering anything new, he wins by a record margin. Is that stability? No, that’s volatility. These wild swings in electoral outcomes are not a sign of a stable political system. They show that people are deeply disaffected—so disillusioned that they will shift en masse just to punish the incumbent. And when there is no alternative, the only immediate beneficiary of discontent is the opposition party.

The ones who will benefit from this system are those who are already organized to take advantage of it. For now, that means the opposition—but we need to scratch beneath the surface. The scale of rejection of the previous government actually creates problems for John Mahama. These are two men—Mahama and his predecessor—who both represent the same underlying neoliberal consensus that has shaped Ghana for decades. So what exactly is Mahama’s agenda that’s different? On the surface, there are some distinctions, but in reality, Ghana is a country facing a crippling debt crisis.

Because of that debt, Ghana’s borrowing costs are rising—its financial credibility in international markets is low. Both the last government and this one share the same priority: to regain credibility with credit-rating agencies so that Ghana can return to borrowing cheaply abroad. That’s the real agenda. But to achieve that, they need to attract foreign capital—and to do that, they must keep domestic interest rates high. Foreign investors borrow cheaply from abroad, bring their money to Ghana, and extract massive profits before repatriating them. But these high domestic interest rates crush local investment and production, creating a vicious cycle.

The entire strategy is a sleight of hand—borrow cheaply abroad, stimulate local activity, and somehow expect that to offset the crushing weight of inflation. It makes sense if you’re an investment banker, a finance minister issuing government bonds, or a middleman brokering public-private partnerships in energy, infrastructure, and roads. But for the vast majority of people, it’s a system designed to squeeze them further.

Now, in theory, the overwhelming rejection of the last government should have forced Mahama to rethink this approach. But if the public’s rejection isn’t rooted in a deeper critique of neoliberalism, then Mahama faces no real constraint. If the dominant narrative remains that Ghana’s economic woes are simply due to corruption—rather than the deeper structure of long-term neoliberal policies—then nothing fundamentally changes. Corruption, after all, is secondary. A government can be more or less corrupt, but if it is still committed to the same financialized, debt-driven growth model, it will continue to crush ordinary people. You could be the most honest politician in the world, but if your primary aim is to return Ghana to cheap foreign borrowing, then your policies will still extract wealth from the people to satisfy international capital markets.

If we limit our analysis of the last election to a superficial rejection of corruption, we miss the deeper, more critical issues. And because these deeper questions aren’t part of the national discourse, Mahama faces no serious pushback. Instead, political elites, business interests, and various constituencies rush to align with the new administration, hoping to secure favors or position themselves advantageously. Meanwhile, the public celebrates a “change” that, in substance, is zero change.

From a long-term perspective, these alternations in power actually benefit the elite. The ability to lose power, regroup, and return gives the system a veneer of legitimacy, prolonging its lifespan. That’s one of the real reasons for the resilience of Ghana’s political parties. The illusion of democratic turnover keeps hope alive, convincing people that maybe, over time, politicians will “learn their lesson” and improve governance.

At the same time, people still believe in politics—not necessarily because they trust politicians, but because for most Ghanaians, there is no individual escape from systemic problems. You and I are having this conversation; if one of us fell seriously ill, we might be able to crowdfund for treatment abroad or pay for private care. But for the vast majority of people, such an option does not exist. Their only hope for health care, clean water, education, and basic services lies in collective political solutions.

So even as people become increasingly disillusioned, they cannot afford to abandon politics completely. The possibility for change always exists. The question is: Who will take up the responsibility of organizing for it? Who will embed a real ecological agenda in the student movement? Who will bring a genuine working-class program into the trade unions? Who will fight to make the women’s movement a force for real economic and social transformation?

More importantly, who will challenge the divisive forces of religion, ethnicity, and sectarianism, which only serve to weaken the working class? These are not abstract concerns—they are the central political questions of our time. It takes real political agency to rebuild a movement that can unify these fragmented struggles and create a coherent, bottom-up alternative to the current system.

This isn’t just a Ghanaian problem—it’s a pan-African problem. Whether in Ghana or Nigeria, South Africa or Kenya, we all face the same fundamental challenge: how to rebuild popular, mass-based alternatives to the political and economic order. That’s why, in that sense, Africa is a country—because we all share one common fight. We won’t build this alternative overnight. But if we approach it with clarity and commitment, we can begin making inroads into a system that—despite its surface stability—is extremely fragile. And unfortunately, that fragility threatens all of us.

Just look at what’s happening in the Sahel, at the rise of xenophobia across the continent, at how even South Africa—once seen as having Africa’s strongest political culture—has been completely transformed. The ANC’s degeneration, the ethnic mobilization around Zuma, the exploitation of xenophobia in elections—all of it reveals the deep crisis of political imagination on the African left.

At least in Nkrumah’s time, one could say there were ten or twenty years of real progress before things began to decline. But today, there is no progress before the decline even begins. This tells us one thing: Something fundamentally new is needed. And it’s not going to come from Tinubu, or Mahama, or any other recycled politician.

You’re absolutely right about the widespread enthusiasm surrounding these changes in the Sahel. The emergence of military-led governments in places like Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger has clearly captured the imagination of many across West Africa.

We saw this sentiment on full display during Mahama’s inauguration in Accra on January 7. While figures like Tinubu were given official recognition as guests of honor, it was Traoré who received the loudest, longest, and most enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. That moment was deeply ironic—on a day meant to celebrate Ghana’s democratic transition, the most popular leader in the room was a young military officer in fatigues, standing in direct contradiction to the entire spectacle of civilian rule.

And yet, the public reaction makes sense. People associate Traoré with strength, decisiveness, and resistance to foreign domination. There is a longstanding resentment against France in the region, and these new military governments have positioned themselves as anti-imperialist forces, determined to break with the old order. But here’s where I disagree with much of the enthusiasm.

I do not believe these coups represent a step forward. In fact, I think they reflect a cycle we have seen before—one that should make us cautious rather than celebratory. People frequently compare Traoré to Sankara, but I believe that is a complete travesty. Even if you were to compare him to early Rawlings, the parallel would still be questionable at best. The key difference is that Sankara and Rawlings came to power through a moment of genuine popular mobilization. They did not simply seize power—they were pushed into leadership by deep, organized social movements from below. Whether or not they remained true to those movements is another matter, but the fact is that they were forced to reflect the demands of a mobilized population. That does not exist in today’s Sahelian coups.

Yes, there is a strong popular sentiment against France, but it is not connected to an organized revolutionary force that could shape these governments’ agendas. Instead, these military leaders have seized power first and then attempted to mobilize popular support after the fact. That’s a dangerous reversal because it means the people’s agency is being hijacked rather than expanded. This is why I push back against the idea that anti-imperialist rhetoric is enough. Too often, people judge African governments based on their foreign policy positions, as if merely opposing France or the West automatically makes them progressive. But the more important question is: What is their relationship to their own people? A government can oppose foreign domination and still be deeply repressive and unaccountable at home.

That was one of the critical mistakes we made in analyzing Rawlings. Many of us were so focused on his stance against imperialism that we didn’t pay enough attention to how he was sidelining independent organizing, consolidating power, and restructuring the economy in ways that ultimately served elites. If we are not careful, we will repeat the same mistake with figures like Traoré.

Even Sankara’s government had contradictions that we need to learn from. If we are going to be honest about history, we must ask: Why was he overthrown so easily? The reality is that by the time of the coup, he had already alienated key social forces. His government had antagonized trade unions, marginalized certain factions within the military, and struggled with internal division. That’s not to say his overthrow was justified, but it does mean we need to be clear-eyed about the limitations of top-down radicalism.

So the fundamental question remains: Do we want a “savior” figure to fix our problems, or do we want to build real people’s power? Do we trust charismatic leaders to deliver change from above, or do we demand leaders who answer to and reflect the organized will of the people? No matter how heroic, disciplined, or well-intentioned a leader may seem, I do not believe in the rule of “great men.” True change happens when leaders reflect and answer to the organized power of the people—not the other way around.

Secondly, the points I made about Ghana and Nigeria actually apply to Burkina Faso, Mali, and other Sahelian countries. A lot of the conflict and war in these places is fundamentally about resource control—who gets to extract and profit from the new sources of economic growth.

In Burkina Faso and Mali, for example, we’ve seen an explosion in artisanal mining—the same galamsey phenomenon that has reshaped Ghana’s economy. If this were happening in Nigeria, we might be talking about oil bunkering instead. The specific resource differs from country to country, but the pattern remains the same: militias, paramilitary groups, and even state actors fighting over access to resource wealth.

So, if we acknowledge that resource control is at the heart of these conflicts, we must ask: How different are these military-led governments from the transnational corporations that also seek to dominate these sectors?

Exactly. And if you want a stark example of how extreme this can get, just look at Sudan—specifically the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Unlike Ghana or Nigeria, where resource control is fragmented among multiple factions, in Sudan, the RSF has centralized control over key extractive industries. The RSF’s power didn’t come out of nowhere—it was cultivated by the former military dictatorship, which outsourced certain forms of repression and state violence to this paramilitary group.

In exchange for carrying out brutal crackdowns and counterinsurgency campaigns, the RSF was rewarded with direct control over gold-mining operations and other strategic assets. Over time, this resource-backed paramilitary force developed its own independent financing networks, allowing it to function as a state within a state.

Now, as Sudan spirals into civil war, we see how this model of militarized resource extraction has global implications. The RSF isn’t just an internal Sudanese force—it has deep financial and strategic ties to foreign actors like the UAE. These relationships are creating a whole new circuit of capital, trade, and political alliances that extend beyond traditional Western influence.

This is why we can’t analyze the Sahelian coups in isolation. They are happening at the same time as major geopolitical shifts, including the rise of Asian and Gulf state investments in African resource economies. Climate change and ecological devastation will only intensify these struggles as competition over land, water, and mineral wealth increases. The United Arab Emirates, for example, is positioning itself as a key player in Africa’s resource politics, and it would be a mistake to ignore its role in shaping these dynamics.

So, if we take a step back, what we see is not a simple story of anti-imperialist military governments rising against Western domination. Instead, we see a complex, multipolar competition for control over Africa’s resources, with military elites, corporate interests, and foreign states all deeply entangled in the struggle.