History Of Military African Politics

The military is an immensely powerful and phenomenally rich institution in the state charged with the responsibility of protecting the state and its citizens from external aggression, maintaining the territorial integrity of the state and assisting the police in maintaining and restoring social order and security in the event of a serous civil disturbance or insurgency.

The military is characterized by the following:

1. Professionalism
2. High command structure
3. Coercion or force
4. Discipline
5. Espirit de neutrality
6. Subordination on political leadership and
patriotism

The origin and changing roles of the military:

The origin of the military is traced or is traceable to the colonial days, because the military in Africa, as it exist today was created by the colonial masters. It was conceived as a vital wing of the colonial apparatus to pacify the various group and defend various territories against external aggression.

The nature of the military, which African state inherited at independence, reflected the different colonial policies of the imperial or metropolitan powers, because the military in independent Africa did not server links with the former colonial authorities.

The phenomenon of coup in Africa, which first began in Egypt in 1963, is a reflection of the changing perception of the military about its role in the political system. And since 1963 to date Africa has witnessed 91 military coup. The coup that took place in 2014 in Burkina faso, which toppled the 27 years rule of blaisecompare being the most recent in Africa’s political history.

Every military regime, no matter how benevolent , is usually described as an “aberration” of the military’s guardian role in the body polities or polity, and a prescription for recurring instability. By its training and disposition, the military is ill-suited for the civil society, and by its nature, its inherently unstable, because it does not provide established mechanisms for orderly succession or transfer of political power.

Odetola, (1978)  argues that, because the military is commandist in structure and paternalistic in orientation, its basic norms and values run counter to the objectives of a democratic and developing society. The military’s projection of its custodian role to include overt political role, has consequently damaged its professionalism and created what Howe, (2001: 2) described as “the tension between military capabilities and political responsibility.