To understand how the trends of Africa and their political development post Covid-19 is to understand their current political situations. Most African countries have failed in holding their political developments and having poor economy after their independence from Europe. Edward Miguel stated that countries with poor governance such as Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Zambia, etc will struggle having political development because they never had a stabilised democracies as nations. Furthermore, African nations all have different views in developing their countries, for example countries like Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, they have failed communist political ideologies, whereas Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania they are trying to have marketing economies and South Africa is struggling with their neo capitalist ideology. Countries like Rwanda and Botswana who are on the verge of being considered as emerging economies, this results in different political development outcome. Post Covid-19 could start leadership crisis along with political instability, which could begin a social unrest.
Post Covid-19 will cause economic collapse within the African continent due to them being heavily reliant on the tourism for economic contribution. Furthermore, if the countries have slow economic growth along with a failed government, it will trigger a line debt crisis which will cause a recession.
Because of weak political institutions of internal democracy, and lack of unity within the governmental parties due to successions to replace their leaders, when the Covid-19 is over and countries recovering from high mass death rates and quarantined, this could lead a political violent unrest within the government and in the streets. Jason Robinson and Matt Ward from Oxford Analytica mentioned that The political impact will vary for country and each state in Africa, depending how they have handled the pandemic during its peak, when the lockdown has been lifted and there is a economic downturn in the countries this could spark an unrest by the frustrated citizens. According to them, after Covid-19 political stability will be threatened, because unpopular politicians will weaponize and manipulate Covid-19 crisis to gain support and political strength during the elections. In addition, most world leaders have been given emergency unlimited powers during the Covid-19 which has been said that threatens human rights for the average citizens and democracy, this could cause some internal political power struggle inside the government. Furthermore, Covid-19 will trigger the political instability in more of a direct way within the country and inside the government due to politicians acquiring dangerous amount of political power.
Christina Golubski, assistant director of the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings stated that Boko Haram has already attacked Chad and Nigeria during this pandemic, they have killed over 140 soldiers in Nigeria and 92 soldiers in Chad, this was the deadliest terrorist attack that has been conducted by the Boko Haram. Bulama Bukarti stated that “Post Covid-19 Africa will become even more vulnerable to terrorism acts specifically from a notable terrorist organisation of Boko Haram”. The Jihadi extremist groups will attack the countries whilst they are vulnerable and still recovering from Covid-19 since their priorities will not be solely focused on national security, but they will more focused in reviving their economies. This will also allow the terrorists to strategize and attack the countries. In addition to terrorist attacks, these terrorists’ groups will use this opportunity to recruit the impressionable and desperate young people and exploit them into committing terrorists acts within their own countries.
There needs to be a longitudinal study that will require few years post Covid-19 to see whether there is any concrete political development. There is a lack of preparedness within the mindset of the African governments, making it easy for political unrests within the countries with high poverty rates along with weak health system, with citizen who are under financial stress. Furthermore, the terrorist groups such as Boko Haram will use this time to create space and spread their extremist agendas.
