Equatorial Guinea:Power was almost theirs — until it slipped away.

By Chinasaokwu Helen Okoro

Behind palace walls and army barracks, history has often teetered on the edge. A mercenary plane idling on a Harare runway. A manifesto drafted in haste in Accra. A midnight radio speech that never reached the airwaves. Across Africa, the coups that nearly toppled governments — but fell short — are as gripping as the ones that succeeded.

From the botched 2004 Equatorial Guinea plot that drew in Mark Thatcher and a tangle of international backers, to the doomed “house-cleaning” crusade of a young Ghanaian officer, these moments brought nations within inches of upheaval — only for power to slip from the grasp of the would-be rulers.

The Coup That Nearly Succeeded unpacks these dramatic near-misses: the shots that missed, the alliances that splintered, the ambitions that collapsed under their own weight. Beyond the intrigue, they reveal the fragility of states, the risks of unchecked ambition, and the razor’s edge on which political history often turns.