Publication Details
Abstract
This study examined how politics corruption has been interwoven with military coups in West Africa, and specifically in the West African country of Nigeria. The issue under research is the continued state of instability in Niger which is caused by a mixture of both governance failure and recurrent military interventions. The purpose of the research was to analyze the role of corruption in politics in military coup and instability that follows, as well as consider the aspects of society that issues military intervention as something desirable. The theoretical theory of Selectorate was implemented and the theory assumes that political leaders stay in power by gratifying a small group of loyalists and in most cases, it is through corruption and this leaves such an environment where military coups are likely to succeed. The research was a qualitative study that used secondary sources in the form of journal articles, governmental reports, and the media. The data has been analyzed via the content analysis approach, and it showed that the changes in the democratic institution through corruption cause disillusionment on the side of the people, making the possibility of a military intervention more likely. The results revealed that military overthrows in Niger are commonly introduced as rightful measures although they during reign of political and economic instability instead of addressing the fundamental problems. Also, the inability of the democratic institutions to address the needs of citizens was proposed to be one of the reasons why military intervention was an attractive opportunity among the citizens. The recommendations involve focusing on governance reforms, solving the issue of socio-economic inequality, and establishing regional and international support of the stability of democracy.