If one had to limit themselves to only Nigeria’s way of leadership, one might never know what other countries within Africa have had to face over decades.
Imagine having a president who ruled over a nation for not just eight years but over ten years and still counting, just like Emperor Haile Selassie, who, according to Britannica, ruled over Ethiopia for about 44 years (1930-1974) before he was overthrown in 1974.
Many other countries have records of long-serving presidents, and in this piece, we’ll examine the countries with the longest presidency in Africa.
1. Republic of Congo (Denis Sassou Nguesso) – 1979 till date
Nguesso was born in 1943 and attended Loubomo Secondary School from 1956 to 1961. He was affiliated with the military and joined the army in 1960, where he was sent for training in Algeria and France.
In the early 1970s, he became actively involved in politics and became a colonel. He was connected to the country’s primary ruling party, the Congolese Labour Party.
Denis Sassou Nguesso was first elected president in 1979 and ruled the Republic of Congo until 1992, when it was forced into a multiparty democracy. But in 1997, after a civil war, he returned to power and has stayed in power to date. It was a political comeback, and he has been in power for more than twenty years after his re-election.
Two years before he lost his seat, in 1990, he influenced the introduction of new political parties in Congo to counter the one-party system that existed in the state.
This fight for democracy led to his removal from office, as the people democratically elected Pascal Lissouba as president. In 1997, he came back to power to continue the work towards democracy that he had previously started. He’s the fifth and seventh President of Congo.
2. Equatorial Guinea (Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo) – 1982 till date
Obiang was born June 5, 1942, in Acoacán, Equatorial Guinea, and has been in power since 1979. He came into power when he took over from his uncle, who became the nation’s first president immediately after independence in 1968, by a coup.
When he came into power, he made a few political changes that did little to improve the population. This caused them to deal with poverty and limited access to basic amenities. There were also persistent occurrences of human rights abuse.
A $3 million donation that Obiang used to fund the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences triggered controversies and raised questions due to his track record.
The president has been in power for over four decades. He became president in 1982 and is still in office. It’s safe to say he’s one of those whose country had the longest presidency in Africa.
3. The Eritrea (Isaias Afwerki) – 1993 till date
Isaias Afwerki was born 1946 in Asmara, Eritrea. He studied engineering at the University of Addis Ababa. However, he left at some point to join the Eritrea Liberation Front, where he actively played roles in different capacities. The movement fought for an independent nation for Eritrea.
The country gained independence in 1993 and has had only one president to date. Afwerki’s reign has been strictly ruled, with no room for elections.
4. Chad (Idriss Déby) – 1990 to 2021
Idriss Déby was born in 1952 in the Fada region in the north of Chad. Like Sassou Nguesso, Déby started his career in the army in the early 1970s and was trained in France, where he obtained his pilot license. When he returned to Chad in 1978, the country was still in a civil war.
He promised Chad multiparty democracy, an end to lawlessness, and an end to the conflicts that had afflicted the nation for a long time. Well, he didn’t fully keep his word, even though some progress was made. He is known to have a solid military influence and has a record of a long rule etched in the history of Chad—one that cannot be forgotten in a hurry. He became president in 1990 after spearheading a revolt against the military government.
In 1993, he was officially made Interim president. In 1996, he was elected president in the first multiparty presidential elections in Chad’s history. He was murdered in 2021, but before that, his reign had characteristics of persistent violence, poverty, and corruption.
5. Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe) – 1987 to 2017
Robert Mugabe was born in 1924 in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe. He received training as a teacher in a Roman Catholic Mission School and, while he was a student, at a university in South Africa, University College of Fort Hare. He also worked as a teacher from around 1956 to 1960.
He was the first prime minister for about seven years between 1980 and 1987. During his rule, there were marks of violence, intimidation, and limited receptiveness to political opposition. Mugabe stood against racism, neo-colonialism, and Western imperialism.
As one of those who ruled a nation with the longest presidency in Africa, he was a key influence in Zimbabwe’s independence, yet his rule was economically unstable. Also, he was removed from the office in 2017 even though he had always said he’d be there for as long as possible.
6. Rwanda (Paul Kagame) – 2000 till date
Paul Kagame was born on the 23rd of October in 1957 in Tambwe, Ruanda-Urundi, now in the territory of Rwanda. He has been involved in politics, after which he was a military man and a key military personnel during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Kagame was the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front that helped to stop the genocide.
He came into power in 2000, and the country experienced rapid economic growth alongside accusations of being an authoritarian, which he faced while in power.
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7. Togo (Gnassingbé Eyadéma) – 1967 to 2005
Gnassingbé Eyadéma was born December 26, 1935, in Pya, Togoland, now known as Togo. Togo is one of the countries that has been faced with the longest presidency in Africa. Between 1953 and 1961, he joined the French army and had time of service at Indochina, Dahomey, Niger, and Algeria. After this period, he became a sergeant in 1962 when he returned to Togo.
One could call Eyadéma’s reign a royal family affair, and arguably so. He became president in 1967, and after he died in 2005, his son, Faure Gnassingbe, became the new president. Hence, his family was free to rule the nation even after his death.
9. Algeria (Abdelaziz Bouteflika) – 1999 to 2019
He was born in 1937 in Oujda, Morocco, but his family was from Tlemcen, Algeria. He spent most of his early life in Algeria. In 1957, he joined the National Liberation Front, also known as the Front de Libération Nationale.
He then became president in 1999 and ruled for 20 years, another evidence that Algeria is one of the nations connected to the longest presidency in Africa. His leadership attracted a lot of criticism, including accusations of electoral malpractice and corruption, for which he was convicted in 1983.
Bouteflika was forced to resign after protests against his presidency. Despite contributing to the nation’s reconstruction after the Civil War, his presidency was marked by corrupt practices. He suffered from terminal illness for the next few years, and finally, he died of cardiac arrest at the age of 84.
9. Burundi (Pierre Nkurunziza) – 2005 to 2020
Pierre Nkurunziza was born in 1963 in Bujumbura, Burundi’s economic capital. In 1990, he obtained a university degree in physical education from the University of Burundi, after which he joined the same university as an assistant lecturer.
He was initially involved with the Hutu Rebel group and then joined the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Forces pour la Défense de Démocratie; FDD), the armed wing of a Hutu exile group, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (Conseil National pour la Défense de Démocratie; CNDD).
He became president of Burundi in 2005 and ruled for about 15 years. During his rule, Pierre made efforts to promote peace after a long civil war, but he was met with criticism, and the people accused him of authoritarianism and human rights abuse. Pierre died after the 2020 elections.
10. Uganda (Yoweri Museveni) – 1986 till date
He was born in 1944 in Mbarra district, Uganda. He studied Political science and Economics at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. While a student, he led a student group affiliated with the African liberation movement. He was also one of the leaders who contributed to the fall of Idi Amin’s regime between 1971 and 1979.
President Museveni started his reign as a freedom fighter after he was elected in 1986. He came into power after leading a five-year liberation struggle. Along with 26 others, he stood against the tyranny spearheaded by past regimes. Soon after he came into power, he united the political groups in the nation by creating a broad-based government.
For many decades, his reign has been characterised by economic stability and limitation of political opposition. He’s the ninth President of the nation and is still in power.
Apart from the ones mentioned, many other countries are included in the classification of nations with the longest presidency in Africa.
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