National leadership in post-colonial Africa

Contrary to appearances and other ideas, post-colonial Africa was politically stable. This is what this essay demonstrates, with statistics to back it up. After independence, the irruption of the military on the political scene, untimely coups d'état, added to other forms of regime change, had contributed to give Africa the image of a continent dominated by political instability, an image that reigns of zero days, three, four or five months, listed in the essay and other equally ubiquitous facts, have tended to establish. And yet, the reality, enlightened by reliable statistics, the longevity in power of African leaders, the concentration of facts of instability around a very small number of countries, etc., proved to be different. The stability of Africa thus demonstrated, this essay was also intended, in addition to having listed all the African leaders from 1960, the year of independence, to 1988, a year of transition, a chronicle of political life in Africa with its curiosities and other diverse and striking facts.