The unbroken trident of conflicts, coups and climate crisis had hugged the headlines in Africa throughout the past year, making 2025 a challenging twelve months for the continent.
Aside from the glint and glimmer from democratic milestones in the successful political succession stories of Ghana, Malawi, Namibia and Seychelles, it was the year of political unrests notably in Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon and Madagascar where popular grievances ranging from unfulfilled election promises for economic progress, unbearable tax regimes to lack of social amenities and electoral malpractices, underlined the governance crisis rocking the continent.
Thousands of Gen Z youth took to the streets of Nairobi to protest what they called stringent tax laws which threatened to squeeze them out of existence and battled anti-riot police who used live ammunition, killing many. In Tanzania, the government of Samia Suluhu Hassan faced the fury of demonstrators before October’s presidential elections and after it leading to the death of scores of protester who claimed it was heavily rigged in her favour. Samia’s critics accused her of eliminating and incarcerating potential poll rivals from the presidential race to clear her path to the presidency, winning by a landslide and invoking further public wrath by the security forces muscular of post-electoral demonstrations in which scores had died. She had been president since the death of her boss John Magufuli in 2021.
In Cameroon, the main talking point about the October elections revolved around the biological and political longevity President Paul Biya who had 92 was running for a record eighth term as president and polled 54 percent of the vote ahead of his main challenger Issa Tchiroma Bakary who eventually fled to The Gambia in apparent fear of his life amid post-electoral violence in Yaounde and the Cameroonian towns and cities challenging the poll outcome.
Meanwhile from September to October, wildcat protests swept through the island nation of Madagascar, triggered by an unprecedented utility crises which eventually forced President Andry Rajoelina from power, the military in support of the demonstration annoucing his ouster in a coup. Close to 30 people had died in two months of unrelenting protests which began as a demand for an end to power and water shortages but quickly morphed into a political movement baying for an end to the Rajoelina regime.
Set against all these political conflagrations are the protracted conflicts in Sudan and DR Congo on the one hand and the bloody insurgencies rocking Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria on the other.
Cheerless images of the suffering in war-torn Sudan sat like a scar on the consiencce of the world throughout 2025, leading to what relief organisations called the worst humanitarian crisis in recent generations.
The Sudanese civil war began as a power struggle between junta leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan backed by the Sudanese Armed Forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo or Hermati who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Both sides had fought to a stalemate in the early months of last year but by October RSF had gained the upper hand in many contested parts of the country including Darfur and Kordofan as SNA soldiers beat a retreat. The development in the battlefield had been stained by reports by rights groups of gross human rights violations including extrajudicial killings including mass murder, rape and disappearances. RSF fighthers were accused of carrying out such violations which some rights concerns say constitute crimes against humanity. The paramilitary group had promised to investigate the allegations.
The coup epidemic continues to plague Africa where political disputes in several countres had culminated in attempts to seize power by the military, the latest of which happened in Benin in November. President Patrice Talon who confirmed he would not bid for reelection at the end of his second term net April, was on the verge of losing power earlier than schedule thanks to a coup which nearly succeeded but for the military intervention of neighbouring Nigeria acting at the behest of the West African regional grouping Ecowas and former colonial power France. Talon loyalists in the government and the Beninese military prevailed on abortive coup leader Pascal Tigri whose rebel soldiers briefly took control of the national television headquarters in Cotonou. Tigri had since escaped to neighbouring Togo where calls for his extradition was being sought.
A week earlier a peculiar chain of events in Guinea-Bissau saw the ouster of President Umaro Sissoco Embaló who had announced his own overthrow to the international media. This had followed the disputed outcome of the November 23 presidential election. He was briefly detained by Brigadier General Dinis Incanha as a so-called High Military Command council was established to restore national security and public order under General Horta Inta-A Na Man as transitional president. Embaló eventually fled into exile to Senegal and the Republic of Congo before surfacing in Morocco.
As 2026 sets in, at least eight countries on the continent are under military leaderships whose architects seized power but contested elections and won. Two such cases are Guinea’s Mamady Doumbouya who shed his military uniform to contest and win by a landslide presidential elections held in December and Oligui Nguema who did the same in Gabon earlier in the year.
From extreme heat and prolonged drought to deadly floods, Africa had faced the worst climate crises in 2025.
According to some estimates the past twelve months were characterised by climate woes moving from El Niño to La Niña situations. This was particularly pronounced in the last quarter of the year with extreme temperatures such as in the Horn of Africa with Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia seriously affected. This had resulted in an acute food insecurity aggravated by erratic rainfall patterns. A severe drought had left over 2 million people in dire need of food aid in Angola.
Extreme flooding in Ghana, Nigeria, Chad and the Centrl African Republic had caused a huge humanitarian crisis which still demands attention.
WN/as/APA