Article contents
Praetorianism in Commonwealth West Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Extract
Within five years, some of the cadets to whom these remarks were addressed helped overthrow Kwame Nkrumah. Despite the warning, ‘Politics are not for soldiers’, the armed forces in Ghana – as in 14 other African states – assumed full political control. The military thus changed in Africa from relatively insignificant relics of colonial administration into prime arbiters of political disputes – settling arguments, in many instances, by the direct seizure of power. Praetorianism had reached south of the Sahara.
- Type
- Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972
References
Page 203 note 1 Watkins, Frederick Mundell, ‘Praetorianism’, in The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1934), XII, pp. 305–6.Google Scholar
Page 203 note 2 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968), p. 196.Google Scholar
Page 204 note 1 Perimutter, Amos, ‘The Praetorian State and the Praetorian Army: toward a taxonomy of civil-military relations in developing polities’, in Comparative Politics (New York) 1, 3, 04 1969, p. 384.Google Scholar
Page 205 note 1 Gutteridge, William F., The Military in African Politics (London, 1969), p. 2.Google Scholar
Page 205 note 2 Ibid. pp. 14–15.
Page 205 note 3 Lee, J. M., African Armies and Civil Order (London, 1969), p. 36.Google Scholar
Page 205 note 4 Coleman, James S. and Brice, Belmont Jr, ‘The Military in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Johnson, John J. (ed.), The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton, 1962), pp. 366–7.Google Scholar
Page 207 note 1 van den Berghe, Pierre L., ‘The Military and Political Change in Africa’, in Welch, Claude E. Jr. (ed.), Soldier and State in Africa: a comparative analysis of military intervention and political change (Evanston, 1970), pp. 252–66.Google Scholar
Page 207 note 2 Hoskyns, Catherine, The Congo Since Independence, January 1960–December 1961 (London, 1965), p. 88.Google Scholar
Page 209 note 1 Afrifa, A. A., The Ghana Coup, 24th February 1966 (New York, 1966), p. 109.Google Scholar
Page 209 note 2 Ibid. p. 71.
Page 210 note 1 Ibid. pp. 100–2.
Page 210 note 2 Kraus, Jon, ‘The Men in Charge’, in Africa Report (Washington), XI, 4, 04 1966, p. 20.Google Scholar
Page 210 note 3 Ankrah, Joseph A., ’, in African Forum (New York), II, 1, Summer 1966, p. 6.Google Scholar
Page 211 note 1 Goody, Jack, ‘Consensus and Dissent in Ghana’, in Political Science Quarterly (New York), LXXXIII, 3, 09 1968, p. 351.Google Scholar
Page 211 note 2 Killick, Tony, ‘The Economics of Cocoa’, in Birmingham, W., Neustadt, J., and Omaboe, E. N. (eds.), A Study of Contemporary Ghana, vol.I, The Economy of Ghana (Evanston, 1966), p. 360;Google Scholar and Rinuner, Douglas, ‘The Crisis in the Ghana Economy’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), IV, 1, 05 1966, pp. 19 and 23.Google Scholar
Page 211 note 3 Broadcast of 28 February 1966, quoted in Ghana Reborn (New York, Ghana Information services, 1966), pp. 7–8.
Page 214 note 1 Skiar, Richard L., ‘Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, III, 2, 08 1965, pp. 201–15.Google Scholar
Page 215 note 1 Dudley, B. J., Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria (London, 1968), pp. 564–98;Google Scholar and Mackintosh, John P.et al., Nigerian Government and Politics (London, 1966), 508–609.Google Scholar
Page 215 note 2 Daily Express (Lagos), 30 July 1964, quoted in Mackintosh, op. cit. p. 564.
Page 215 note 3 Gutteridge, op. cit. pp. 71–2.
Page 215 note 4 Zolberg, Aristide R., ‘The Structure of Political Conffict in the New States of Tropical Africa’, in The American Political Science Review (Menasha), LXII, 1, 03 1968, pp. 70–87.Google Scholar
Page 216 note 1 Gutteridge, op. cit. p. 75. Robin Luckham isolates four levels of plotting in which Ibos were prominent, but not exclusive; ‘The Nigerian Military: a case study in institutional breakdown’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1969, pp. 134–42. Martin J. Dent points to five Ibo majors ‘who from early 1965 formed the nucleus of the officers preparing for a violent overthrow of the civilian government’; ‘The Military and Politics: a study of relations between the army and the political process in Nigeria’, in Kirkwood, Kenneth (ed.), African Affairs, in (London, 1969), p. 521.Google Scholar
Page 216 note 2 Vatiotikis, P. J., The Egyptian Army in Politics:patternfor new nations? (Bloomington, 1961).Google Scholar
Page 217 note 1 Wood, David, The Armed Forces of African States (London, 1966), Institute for Strategic Studies, Adeiphi Papers No. 27, p. 16.Google Scholar
Page 217 note 2 Gutteridge, William, ‘Military Elites in Ghana and Nigeria’, in African Forum, II, 1, Summer 1966, p. 37.Google Scholar
Page 217 note 3 Huntington, Samuel P. (ed.), Changing Patterns of Military Politics (New York, 1962), pp. 31–40.Google Scholar
Page 217 note 4 Wood, op. cit. p. 29.
Page 218 note 1 Kilson, Martin L., Political Change in a West African State: a study of the modernizatien process in Sierra Leont (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), P. 245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page 218 note 2 Africa Research Bulletin (Exeter), V, 4, April 1968, col. 1035c.
Page 220 note 1 ‘A coup in itself is not a good thing; but it is one of the most effective methods of restoring the constitutional rights of the people when they have been deprived of the constitutional means for changing a corrupt and tyrannical government.’ Afrifa, op. cit. pp. 85–6.
Page 220 note 2 Zolberg, loc. cit. pp. 73–4.
Page 220 note 3 Gutteridge, op. cit. p. 79.
Page 221 note 1 Lee, op. cit. p. 175.
Page 222 note 1 Cf. Watkins, ‘Praetorianism’, loc. cit. p. 307.
- 6
- Cited by