Why Do African Governments Fear Peaceful Protests?

In the past year, a series of protests have occurred in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania. The responses of the governments of these countries were very similar, reflecting aggression, violence and fear.

In July 2024, Bayo Onanuga, an advisor to Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, launched another diatribe against one of the major opposition figures in Nigeria, Peter Obi. Onanuga accused Obi of partnering with supporters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist group proscribed in Nigeria, to forcibly remove his principal. When Onanuga used the terms ‘anarchy’ and ‘civilian coup’, he was referring to calls for nationwide protests in August 2024. He was not alone. Around the same time, responding to calls for an anti-corruption demonstration at the Ugandan parliament, President Yoweri Museveni accused protesters of conniving with foreigners to cause chaos and warned them not to ‘play with fire’. More prominently, President William Ruto of Kenya denounced protesters in his country as treasonous following a violent police crackdown on demonstrators who marched on the parliament.

Clearly, the common thread in the responses from the Nigerian, Ugandan, and Kenyan governments to calls for protests is to delegitimize them by characterizing the protesters as agents of chaos and instability. On the other hand, when the main opposition party of Tanzania, Party for Democracy and Progress (commonly known as Chadema), announced it would be rallying for constitutional reforms, the regional commissioner of Dar-es-Salaam, Albert Chalamila, didn’t directly attack protesters. Chalamila simply announced that the army would be holding a sanitation exercise in the city on the same day. Nonetheless, his action was tantamount to the same purpose of delegitimizing protesters. How effectively a government discredits dissent influences its ability to justify crackdowns on its opponents (real and perceived), thereby shutting down rightful conversations on critical national issues. Fortunately, unlike other countries, the Tanzanian demonstrators enjoyed police protection, and the rally was peaceful. Markedly so, for a country where political demonstrations had been banned for six years until 2023 when President Samia Suluhu Hassan lifted her predecessor’s ban on protests as part of reconciliation strategies...