Introduction
The intention of this brief exposition is to shed light on how far the concept of democracy has fared on the continent of Africa, which is composed of people of diverse cultures, customs, and tongues.
From the former Gold Coast, where the first bell of independence from European rulers sounded on the soil of sub-Saharan Africa, to South Africa, where apartheid gave rise to the strength of popular resolve in 1994, it has remained a form of snail-like navigation in the ocean of democratization across this vast and purported cradle of civilization.
Various are the reasons why African states, through its length and breadth, remain the least of the seven continents that constitute the globe, to be beneficiary of the system of government that has come to be identify as the most favored and stable of the various form of government, as so far practiced by man, in the administration of the state, for fulfillment and uplifting of its constituent, for the maintenance of law and order, and for the provision and sustenance of resource to its population.
The first decade of self-rule on the continent of Africa is characterized by imposed unity governments, often in the form of one-party states, although they were often purported to be multiparty states, with the understanding that the entire population of its constituent parts could work together for the common good in emerging democracies. This became difficult in practice to actualize because it gave free rein to dictators and tyrants in the corridors of power, which invariably led to instability in governance, as witnessed across the countries of Africa from the inception of independence to date in the sixth decade of attempts at a stable democratic way of life.
As widespread as the concept and practice of democracy has come to be among the nations of the world, especially in the western world, with its benefit on the board for all to see, nearly, all of African countries, who assume they are a democratic state, are in the real sense of the tenet of democracy, still as babies trying at make a first step.
Hence, the intent of this effort, to expose the drawbacks, enumerate the possible way forward, and analyze the possible process of maturation of democratic culture across the continent of Africa.
The continent of Africa.
Africa is the second largest of the world’s seven continents, covering about 23 percent of the world’s total land mass and comprising about 13 percent of the people on earth. It is bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by both the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea; its north is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea. The Sinai Peninsula covers its northeastern corners.
Africa is a land of great diversity. It is covered with green forests, grassy plains, barren deserts, tall Mountains, and mighty Rivers.
Africa is populated by diverse people with a wide range of cultures and numerous languages.
Africa is considered one of the foremost civilizations of the world, with a history spanning over 500 years. At a certain point in history, Africa became dominated by European traders, who sent millions of Africans to work as slaves in North America and the Caribbean. They also carry away Africa’s wealth of raw materials to fuel their industrial growth. In the twilight of the 19th century, the European intruders seized and colonized enormous African territories.
Eventually, through slow reforms and violent struggles, most African societies gained independence in the period from the 1950s to the 1960s.
Because of the policy of divide and rule, and ineffective bonding of people and culture, weak nations resulted as independent states of Africa post-colonial rule. With economies that can’t compete globally, as a consequence of poor communication and dwarf transportation systems left as the legacy of colonial rule in Africa. Africa is a continent rich in mineral resources. The abundance of these resources drew the Europeans in the 1800s to the continent to tap several of Africa’s raw materials: palm oil, cotton, rubber, gold, diamonds, etc.
The availability of these raw materials eventually led to the colonization of the continent.
As these natural resources seemed to be a curse of the continent in the colonial era, so they remain today, as the political elite plunder these resources to make themselves greater than their society.
The continual scramble for the resource, both in the colonial era and today, by African leaders, ably aided by their foreign collaborator, in the name of foreign trade, is still the root cause of the underdevelopment of African countries. One uses the resource to enrich itself while the other uses the African resource to enrich its ever-growing manufacturing sector, both to the detriment of the average African citizen.
Decolonization of African artificially drawn African border
Africa’s political legacy from colonial rule was a mass of artificially drawn borders of ethnically diverse populations with few or not much in common.
The British decolonizing process was more jumbled and of lasting strife among the ethnic nationalities, even today. The Gold Coast, now Ghana, led the way in becoming the first to leave the colonial jungle. Thereafter, the pace of gaining freedom from the British is largely a subject of how fast any of the colonies could organize and seek freedom.
Like the departing Britain, Belgium had no plans for decolonizing the Belgian Congo until 1959, when it caved in in the face of rapid political changes in surrounding colonies. It rushed toward an ill-prepared decolonization in 1960, with the departing Belgians hoping to retain a measure of economic control by handing political power over to a weak and disunited government.
The liberation of Portugal’s colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique was achieved after lengthy and bitter guerrilla wars. Exhausted, Portugal withdrew from its colonies in 1974 (in Guinea-Bissau) and 1975 (in Angola and Mozambique), leaving behind revolutionary Marxist regimes to attempt to transform battered economies.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the French were quickest with political reform. Across French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa colonies, the French allowed the election of local government representatives and, in return, received African agreement to maintain close economic ties with France.
White settler power in industrialized South Africa was more entrenched. The white South African government overrode the wave of African nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s by the use of widespread oppression and imprisonment. Through the 1980s, internal rebellious pressures combined with the loss of Western support finally prompted the South African government to change. South African-occupied Namibia became independent in 1990, and the government negotiated an end to the oppressive apartheid system with the country’s African majority from 1990 to 1994.
In some parts of North Africa, independence came fairly quickly and smoothly after the Second World War. Libya became independent in 1952, and both Morocco and Tunisia in 1956. Meanwhile, in Algeria, the numerous and powerful French colonists were determined that it would remain part of France. The bitter and bloody Algerian War of Independence was fought until the French finally conceded independence in 1962. In Egypt, radical Muslim army officers overthrew the British puppet government in 1952. Led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, they redistributed Egyptian land to the peasantry and nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956. This was the final symbol of Egyptian independence from Europe, and the failure of Britain’s attempt to regain the canal signaled to the rest of Africa that the colonial bluff had been called.
The lack of a definitive foundation for the emerging democracies of Africa
This apparent lack of deliberate foundation for the incoming state led to most of the instability experienced by most of the emerging states. Since deliberate effort was not cultivated to put a lasting foundation and workable state on the ground.
The political evolution of Africa’s political bequest from its colonial ruler was a collection of hard-to-mix people of individually diverse cultures forced together by an arbitrarily drawn boundary. Hence, working together to collectively make a nation is impossible, as each section wants what’s best for their region, especially in those nations that favor rotation between their constituent parts to rule one after the other, as the region in power sees its turn as an opportunity to better its lot in the marriage of convenience in which they found themselves.
In the struggle for independence, nationalism binds the various ethnic nationalities on one course to send the colonialists packing.
However, as soon as independence was fought and won, the seeming unity survived while the new African governments were being formed. Thereafter, the survival of the unit within the collective comes to the order of the day. This led to strife that resulted in various Civil Wars, such as Nigeria, 1967-1970, Liberia, 1989-1997, Mozambique, 1984-1992, Rwanda, 1994-date, Somalia, 1984-date, etc., fought across the continent in the period preceding independence in most of the newly formed African nations to the present date. In other countries, the outbursts to ineffective leadership of initial attempts at self-rule were calls for military intervention.
It was not until external support, given to dictatorial regimes in Africa, was withdrawn around 1990, at the end of the Cold War, that most African people had the chance to demand representative and responsive government. From 1990 to 1994, most countries established or reestablished multiparty systems of elective government. Citizens voted long-standing autocratic governments out of office in countries such as Niger, Mali, Malawi, and Zambia, while the more astute military rulers, such as Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, discarded their uniforms and were elected as civilian presidents.
Political Parties based on Ethnicity
The departing colonial powers, in their wisdom, bestowed on the emerging independent states of Africa ethnic diversity by bonding people of diverse customs into one border, as a way to subdue larger national opposition, to a degree far greater than existed in the colonial era. For instance, the German and Belgian rules of Rwanda and Burundi had encouraged Hutu and Tutsi adversity. As they designated the Tutsi aristocracy as their partner in colonial times, and denied the Hutu peasantry educational opportunity and economic emancipation. That seed planted in colonial rule sprouted into big massacres and genocide decades later in the 1990s.
In many democratic nations of independent Africa, political parties develop around ethnic sentiments, along the lines as handed over by the erstwhile colonial powers that partitioned the states of Africa. As a result, unstable governing structures subsist in most of the emerging democracies of African states. For instance, such a fragile composition was what resulted in the 1967 secession bid of the Igbo extraction of eastern Nigeria, which led to the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970).
Even before the civil war in Nigeria, two of the country’s illustrious minds, Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe, who respectively are of the western and eastern blocs of Nigeria, both of whom were active agitators in the fight to free Nigeria from the colonialists, failed to emphasize their stand on working together in the newly independent nation. Obafemi Awolowo strongly believed that charity begins at home, therefore emphasizing the need to strengthen the individual region, which he postulated would eventually lead to a strong and representative center. While Nnamdi Azikiwe favors working from the center down to the region.
The rivalry between these two denied the country, Nigeria, the needed momentum for speedy democratization that would have launched the country to the committee of an effective and functional nation from the onset of independence. Because what ensued was Nnamdi Azikiwe going with the north to form a central government, the marriage that eventually failed and resulted in the avoidable civil war, while the western region and Awolowo stayed permanently in opposition.
This ethnicity-based politics is widespread all over Africa, from Nigeria to Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, etc., and remains the biggest source of disunity that makes a one-voice government impossible to be knitted in early post-colonial African democracies. In the periods immediately after independence in most states of Africa, the idea of a one-party state was encouraged, truly believing that this could bring the majority of the people together in a central government for the common good, for the development of the respective countries. It soon became apparent, rather that this bred weak governments, led by heads with dictatorial tendencies, who want to stay in power forever. To foretell the growing selfishness and overgrowing corruption, the population raised its voices, and the military responded by intervening and seizing power by force of arms.
Democracies of pre-colonial Africa. Democratic culture as a concept is not alien to the nationalities of Africa. Pre-colonial era recorded various concepts of representative government among the people of Africa. From time immemorial, the maxim, “Three heads are better than one”, has been an inherent part of African administration and dispute resolution. In this axiom are notions of democratic values and traditions based on participation in ruling themselves through the tenet of law and order.
Several studies have shown that in pre-colonial Africa, the nationalities of Africa have a variety of political organizations ranging from direct and representative democracy to various forms of monarchical and decentralized systems of government that are open and inclusive.
Precolonial Representative Governments in Africa
Fortes and Evan-Pritchard in the effort to situate past democracies of Africa, posted that, “The structure of an African state implies that the kings and chiefs rule by consent”, and that the rulers knows the responsibilities they owe to the subjects and also that the subjects knows their duties to the rulers and to the community, with in-built mechanism to make the rulers accountable.
The indigenous political system of the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria presents an elaborate instance of direct and participatory democracy in traditional African nations. Two layers of political structure are apparent in the Igbo traditional mode of community administration: the village and the village group. The village settings vary in size based on population, and government at this junction is exercised by direct representatives that has a general assembly in which every male who has come of age participates directly in the legislative and administration of public affairs.
This general assembly consists of adult males known as Ama-Ala or Oha, and the assembly ground is usually an open square that serves as the assembly. The assemblage is presented with a matter of public interest, and all present are allowed the floor to air their opinion on the subject matter as the debate on the issue at hand goes back and forth before a final verdict is reached in common consent. The conclusion, as assented by the general assembly, is then forwarded to a smaller assembly called Izuzu, the village group, made up of leaders from each lineage within the village.
Participation in Izuzu is highly esteemed and treasured; hence, it is restricted to men of gallantry and substance, who possess the wisdom on the customs of the community, to analyze and suggest a compromise that will be acceptable to all for the common good. A similar concept co-exists for the women of the village, in the same pattern.
From the Igbo land in southeastern Nigeria to the Kikuyu tribe of modern Kenya, the pre-colonial political structure is pretty the same; there exists no paramount ruler that is above control and caution, as eligible adults constituted the legislative assembly to check and balance the powers of the ruler. And the system has been widespread in a number of African pre-colonial nations with little variance.
In other African societies, democratic systems took the form of a constitutional monarch in the fashion of the English system, with well-defined mechanisms for checks and balances. In this system, society and government were more centralized, and the power of the monarch was limited by popular representatives.
The Oyo Empire of southwestern Nigeria, from 1600-1800, flourished in this style of governance. At the head of the empire was the Alafin of Oyo, as the most important figure of the government. In theory, the Alafin has absolute powers, but in practice, another organ, the Oyomesi, exists to check his power in the administration of the empire. In the Oyo system of government, the Oyomesi acts as the representative council of state, consisting of seven designated wards from each of the wards of the empire. Collectively, they are referred to as the kingmaker.
Similar systems of government exist in other parts of pre-colonial Africa, such as those practiced by the Buganda people of Uganda.
The aforementioned apparently show that the democratic way of governance is not alien to the people of Africa. Hence, what the African nations require is to draw from their indigenous political traditions that are replete with democratic ideals, and form a roadmap in which their traditional system of government can marry the modern realities of self-rule, to form an enduring political system of government that can represent its constituent parts effectively.
Ethnicity, Bane of Democratic Development in Africa
Ethnicity is, bane of democratic development in Africa. Nationalism, the desire by a group of people of the same race, origin, language, etc., to form an independent country, served the nationalities of Africa well in the pre-colonial era. Immediately after independence was fought and won, the autonomy of each region became the order of the day. Each group starts to agitate for relevance in the emerging society and government, as the central government, usually dominated by the dominant ethnic partner, finds a way to corner the power and the resources of the nation. Naturally, the weaker partner responds by being in persistent unrest and calls for equitable distribution of both power and resources.
EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
In most African societies, the balance of equitable distribution of the commonwealth is a difficult task. Because the resources that fuel the state engine are mostly from the minority ethnic group, while the major ethnic group is always the one in charge of ruling the nation due to the high number of its population. Invariably, civil strife leads to civil wars in several African countries. And the ensuing manipulation that forced the people to be of one nation ultimately undermines the growth of a functional democratic culture across Africa.
THE CIVIL WARS OF AFRICA
Let’s peep into the following civil wars as a case in point.
In May 1967, General Yakubu Gowon, the military head of Nigeria, announced the creation of 12 states. The eastern region, mostly of Igbo lineage, is to have three states, two of them dominated by non-Igbo (where crude oil has just been discovered) groups. The leaders of the eastern region, already on the brink of secession by the anti-Igbo attacks in the northern region and the influx of Igbo refugees, saw the action of the central government in the creation of a state as a state-managed marginalization of their region. Hence, the Igbo-dominated assembly of eastern Nigeria authorized Lieutenant Colonel Odemegu Ojukwu to declare independence as the Republic of Biafra. Ojukwu obliged, and civil war broke out in July 1967. In April 1994, shortly after concluding peace negotiations with the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) that called for a UN peacekeeping force to be stationed in Rwanda, President Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi were killed when their plane was shot down near Kigali. This action provoked a wave of ethnic violence. Over the succeeding months, it was estimated that between five hundred thousand and one million Rwandans, mostly Tutsi, were killed. The RPF army edged towards Kigali, and a civil war ensued.
In 1991, Somalia descended into chaos, with the northern region of Somaliland declaring itself an independent republic, with its own presidency, legislature, currency, and constitution. Thousands of lives were lost in ensuring the fracas.
ERA OF CEASEFIRES
As the 1990s progressed, a number of cease-fires between the factions were affirmed in the hope of forming a national government. How does clan fighting disrupt most of the agreement?
At the brink of civil war in most African nations, the activities of governance usually experience a setback. More so, since the majority of the affected states are emerging societies.
MILITARY INTERVENTIONS IN AFRICA
In the first decades of post post-colonial era in Africa, military intervention was often welcomed by an unsatisfied populace who felt betrayed by a dysfunctional civilian government, soaked in an ocean of corruption and failed economic initiative. In no time, it became apparent that the courted military government was not better than the overthrown civilian administration, or in most cases, they became worse than the civilian counterpart in corrupt attributes, as legislation was thrown out through the window of arbitrariness as soon as they took over the reins of affairs.
Many of the purported military saviors grew into brutal dictatorial regimes, unrestricted by constitutionality, committing atrocities against perceived opponents and discerning members of their domain.
Idi Amin of Uganda and Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, both of whom were overthrown in 1979, are two of the most extreme brutal dictatorial regimes of Africa's post-colonial heads of state. Another instance of military adventurism getting out of hand is the regime of General Sani Abacha, the military's ultimate head of government in Nigeria (1993-1998).
Throughout the 1980s, irresponsible and ill-prepared governments were kept in the saddle in various African nations by external collaborators in the bid to keep the abundant resources under the soil of Africa flowing to their nations. Though in extreme instances of state brutality, as when General Sani Abacha hanged the Nigerian writer Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other activists, the West mounted pressure on Abacha and also suspended Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations.
Political development of Africa
Although a new era of accountability come the way of governance in some of the African state in the 1990s, its governing structure still largely remain unstable as failed promises to improve the lives of its citizens, particularly in terms of provision of employment and social services, causes civil unrest that still leads to military intervention, such as we had in Sierra Leone, and Niger in the mid 1990s.
Hence, in the decade of the 1990s, incoming military rulers had to justify their takeover of the affairs of the state, mostly due to the lack of the ousted government. Also, a timetable must be a part of the inaugural speech with specific reference to how and when a new civilian democracy will be established.
THE DAWN OF POPULAR AND MULTIPARTY DEMOCRATIC AFRICA
The 1980s, in the most part, signify the end of the rule of indefinite dictatorships in the steering of African nations.
The birth of the 1990s met an Africa that was unwilling to live in military or civilian dictatorship; across the continent, the sentiment is for popular and multiparty democracy. Although deep-seated corruption, as we witness in oil-rich Nigeria, stayed a couple of countries behind the transition from military interference in politics until the twilight of the 1990s.
THE DEMOCRACY OF AFRICA
What is the democracy of Africa? Two systems of popular representation are prevalent in Africa, as in other parts of the world, namely, democratic and republican forms of governance. Although often used interchangeably, the terms democratic and republican are not synonymous. Both forms of governance delegate the power to govern to their elected representatives.
A democratic political system in which the people of a country rule themselves through any form of government they come together and agree to establish. In modern democracies, supreme authority is exercised for the most part by elected representatives by popular suffrage. The so elected representative may be unseated by the electorate according to the legal procedure in the letter of the constitution on the set down process of recall, as they are responsible to the electorate. In most democracies, both the executive arm of government and the legislative are elected on the platform of one-man-one-vote.
In the republican form of governance, however, the elected officials are vested with the responsibility to act on behave of the electorate, based on their own best judgment of the interests of the country.
THE PROBLEMS WITH AFRICAN DEMOCRACY
Fragile electoral framework
In most nations of Africa, the ruling elite, a class of self-proclaimed know-it-alls in the rules of politics, as soon as they mount the mantle of power, jump into the electoral process as one of the standing policies that requires urgent change and reframe. They usually assemble a bunch of handpicked individuals and hand them a guided mandate to fashion a new electoral framework that is capable of putting the nation out of the hood of undemocratic nations. But there ends the genuineness of their intention. As off the public view, the official and head of such an assembly are given the touchable and untouchable aspects of the expected road map. Even when the mandated report finally reaches the government, it would still be subjected to different kinds of fine-tuning, all in an effort to ensure that their intention of the final document is what makes its way to the national assembly for final ratification, and becomes the rules and regulations that govern the nation’s electoral processes.
Let’s go to Nigeria, as recently as 2008, where the government of President Musa Yar’Adua set up a committee of 21 to fashion out a new electoral framework for the country. The committee, headed by retired Chief Justice of the Federation, Mohammed Uwais, and other eminent Nigerians, consulted widely and finally submitted a report that has a widely accepted by every segment of the country. Yet the presidency still subjected the report to the scrutiny of the Council of State. They, in their crooked wisdom, went ahead to delete some of the public acclaim part of the article. The most controversial article of the report that was removed is the one that recommended that the appointment of the head of the electoral body be removed from the hands of the presidency. Yet again, the presidency has been unsatisfied with the job done by the council of state went ahead to set up another committee of three, made up of a serving minister, the minister of justice, and two others, to review the reviewed report before finally sending it to the national assembly. As my typewriter drifts this brief, no one knows what will become the fate of the document when it finally reaches the president for signature.
This is not new, nor peculiar to the present party in power in Nigeria. It’s rather a sad old story repeating itself from one regime to another.
Neither is the story above peculiar to Nigeria; rather a common experience across the nations of Africa, except for a few who have recently managed to put in place an electioneering process that was able to put a government in place within a reasonable margin of error. Such, include Botswana, which has maintain the longest multi party democracy in Africa, Ghana, where a sitting presidency concede a general election to the opposition in an election it supervised, Kenya, Kenya is included here because it has in place an electoral process that produced the opposition as a winner, even though the sitting presidency tried to change its verdict, but the resilience of the people and international pressure forced the government to accept a power sharing option.
As in Kenya, in Zimbabwe, a tint of working electoral system almost produce the opposition party of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as the new government, with just over 50 percent of total cast of vote in the 2008 general elections, making rerun on unnecessary, but Mugabe and his party stopped the train of progress, by refusing to accept the verdict as spoken by the people. But the doggedness of the opposition party and international pressure forced him to accede to a government of national unity, in which Morgan Tsvangirai serves as the Prime Minister.
Non-adherence to the ethos of democratic rule
A look around the landscape of democratic rule in Africa reveals that the fine thread of the ethos of the democratic way of life is still living in the pages of papers that framers of this concept scripted at independence.
As time matures, the true meaning of democracy diminishes in the hearts of those who purported to be following the articles of democratic culture as formulated by their forebearers. They flag up their campaign to office on these credentials, persuade the people with the spice of democratic governance on their lips. Convince the people with the fine thread of democracy. But when they made the office, they traveled in the opposite direction to the wind of the democratic current. And these anti-democratic tendencies garb as the very essence of democracy is what makes African countries unable to develop along this path of governance adopted by most of the nations of the continent.
Homegrown democracy, democracy as it suits our diversity, has become the saying in which the failure to make democracy take firm root in Africa is buried. They lie to the people that every nation has its own peculiar way of governance, while they use the persuasion, as propagated, to install a hidden agenda, in the articles that spell the norms of the homegrown democracy, as it will make it possible for them to have their way at the polls and in office thence.
Therefore, one of the greatest impediments to the realization of true democratization of Africa is the not too clear demarcation of the exact kind of democratic norms that the nations adhere to.
Changing the political ideology of the state with a change of government makes it impossible for the system to mature. Most especially as these changes occur not for the growth of the nations, but rather for the perpetuation of the new regime in power. Hence, every regime that comes to power always attempts to put a thing or two in the constitutional framework, such as will favor its party to rule absolutely and indefinitely.
Lack of a constitution of the people
The process of drafting the constitution, as it stands at the moment, in most African nations, stands on a faulty footing. Because the process of framing the constitution and the eventual constitution are frequently forced on society by either military or civilian dictators. And the document they bestow on the nation as a constitution is closely guided from the drafting stage to the final road map. Achieved by putting together a constitution review committee, purported to satisfy the agitation of the people, as soon as they mount the helm of affairs, people, by handpicked individuals, have a parley, then submit a premeditated report. The presiding officer of the party in power will send to a compromised national assembly, the national assembly then stages a public hearing, in which they take not-to-be-utilized public opinions. Then wrap up the patch job, give it to the president for affirmation. Thereafter, it becomes the law that governs the land.
This inherent lack of the people’s constitution is directly responsible for the crisis; cry of marginalization, fight for resource control, internal wrangling, etc., that have persistently characterized the state of affairs of most African nations.
Compromised electoral system
One of the biggest impediments to the growth of democracy in African nations is the compromised and ineffective electoral system. From Paul Biya’s many victories (1997, 2002, and 2007) in Cameroon, through his Cameroon People’s democratic movement, through Yoweri Museveni’s third-term reelection of 2006, achieved by an internationally criticized constitutional amendment that allowed him to run for a third term. To Nigeria, where Olusegun Obasanjo organized and conducted an internationally criticized reelection that gave him a fraudulent second term in office, and his failed attempt to adjust the constitution to give him a third term in office.
The verdicts, as stated in the case of Cameroon and Nigeria, are the same for most African nations, i.e., apparent and widespread irregularities, unfairness, and voters’ apathy. The result of this is that bad, fraudulent, and corrupt rulers stay in power at the helm of their state affairs in African nations.
Moneybag, godfather in the politics of Africa
From the decade succeeding colonial rule till date, African state lacks coordinated means of monitoring campaign funds. The situation on the ground favors those who have the resources to buy their way into the various elective offices available on the ballot. It also forces those who are genuinely interested in social emancipation of the society to be cornered by the so-called moneybags, with agreement, most times under oath, oral or written, on how to loot and share the commonwealth of their nation.
The moneybags seek office to further enrich themselves to the detriment of the state they swore to serve and protect, while godfathers so tax their stooge that it becomes almost impossible for the man in charge of state affairs to deliver on campaign promises.
A different kind of setback usually comes with the stooge/godfather mix. The state of affairs, at some point in the life of the bestowed regime, results, when the figure head, in the charge of the state, feels that he cannot amass as much for himself as a consequent of the largess he has hand to the man behind the curtain, or he may find it hard to perform even basic functions of keeping the engine of the state running smoothly, at this junction, the stooge attempt to renege on his part of the secret oath, and naturally the godfather fights to force issue. The grand losers, as is the case when two elephants fight, are the economy and the people of the various nations of Africa where such an affair existed.
A case study is the 1979 election of Alhaji Shehu Shagari to the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Largely installed by hand behind the scenes, both in terms of the provision of funds to the election and in acts that undermined the voices of those coming out victorious after the polls. As is often the case when a moneybag sponsor installs a man in office, payback day came, and Shehu Shagari obliged the kingmakers, with a second term in mind. But then, the cornering of the state purse became too much for even the abundant oil wealth of Nigeria to support, hence the center could not hold. And people cry, foul! Foul!! Foul!! Then the military, led by Mohamed Buhari, heeded the voice of the masses and rounded up most of the participants of that regime and put them in jail. He became the head of state of Nigeria, thereby truncating the second republic of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This threw Nigeria into the darkness of military rule for 16 years (1983-1999).
Ballot box stuffing
The stuffing of ballot boxes before such get to the polling station was and is still a recurrent decimal in elections by universal adult suffrage in African experiments with democratic elections. Mostly, carried out by the incumbent leader who seeks reelection, because he is the one who placed the ineffective election umpire he placed, with unlimited power to fire or to retain the umpire. Such a fellow in charge of the electoral process but seriously subjected to the whim of the head of government and his party machinery, often surrenders to the power that be, and assists in bringing to pass quite several anomalies, which usually include ballot stuffing both before and after the actual casting of votes at the polling station. Money changing hands or the necessity to retain office is usually the impetus that encourages even men of courage in their precedence to cave in and soil their hands. And this to a great extent aids in planting ill-prepared men to get elected and further retain African nations as states that fail to work.
Snatching of ballot boxes and switching of ballot boxes
Another serious impediment to the growth of democracy in African states is the snatching of ballot boxes, in which an aspirant suspect is loaded with cast votes that give the majority of the votes to his opponent. This is carried out by trained thugs, mostly armed to the teeth.
They get to the polling stations towards the conclusion of polling activity, release some bullets to the sky, have the cloud dispatched, and do away with the ballot boxes.
Two methods are applied to replace the unwanted boxes; either they immediately replace them there and then with the pre-cast boxes in the hood of their vehicles, or drive away and simply have the prepared boxes appear at the collating center. Yet again have the states of Africa, led by a fraudulent character.
Selection rather than election of a representative
The political jobber, big men of Africa, bigger than their nations, such as Omar Bongo of Gabon, who have no other vocation than to milk the state to the last drop of milk, either themselves perpetually seek office, or be persisting godfather to others, who seek any and every office of the land, are always on hand to select the persons to run and win the various offices, even before the actual polling activity. Numerous tactics, like constitution remodeling, election rigging, ballot stuffing, and other forms of irregularity, are within their arsenal to make certain that the end they have in mind comes to pass most efficiently. The selectors are men and women who hold most of the political parties by the balls. They set up the parties, finance the parties, and run all the obligations of the campaign to force the parties on the state by every means possible.
These cabals of state-enriched elite are always there, creating or waiting for the best opportunity to always subvert the will of the general population.
An instance in focus is the hand-picking of Umaru Yar’Adua to be voted for (in an election widely condemned as the worst in the country’s many poor elections) as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by outgoing president Olusegun Obasanjo, who himself was handpicked by the military cartel that truncated the freest and fairest election in the history of elections in Nigeria.
The Nigerian instance is not an isolated case; it’s about the story of an average African state, because the selection syndrome is mainly used to cover the track of such a regime that could not perpetuate itself in office.
Ineffective opposition party in Africa
In a democracy, the opposition is the torchlight that exposes the inadequacy of the ruling political party. The opposition comes closer to the masses in aspiration, as soon as they are defeated in the polls. Hence, an effective opposition is supposed to constantly put the party in power on its toes, so that the policies of the government that are not to the benefit of the nation are brought to the front burner for all and sundry to acknowledge and discourse, and do all within constitutional ethos to make the government of the day make the needed turnaround.
The opposition, unfortunately, in the over five decades of self-governance in Africa has been as a lame dog or at best a toothless bulldog. Lost in the vast ocean of money politics, that politicking has come to be in most states of the continent.
Another advantage that effective opposition could have bestowed on the democratization of Africa is the benefit of the other side of the story. That is, allow the opposition, make power due to what they have been preaching, and perceive how effectively their purported programs and policies can uplift society.
The essence of the power of opposition in a democracy is better articulated in the alternation of ruling in the United States between its Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Intimidation of the opposition
Intimidation of opposition is one recurrent decimal that characterizes the practice of democracy in Africa. Through the length and breadth of the continent, from South Africa to Nigeria, Ghana to Egypt, the tales of political oppression dot the political scenes.
Suppression of the opposition is the tool employed by most of the sitting governments to perpetuate itself in unending rule of the state. Hence, the reason the continent is besieged with rulers that remain in power for twenty, thirty, or even over forty years.
The machinery (armed forces, state resources) of the state is employed to subjugate any and every voice that insists that things should be done differently, to the benefit and welfare of the society and its citizens.
The press, the civil society, the veritable voice of the people, hence of the opposition, is usually subjected to constant harassment by most leaders who want to remain in power forever.
Journalists, prominent pro-democracy advocates, and consistent social critics are always intimidated, rounded up, charged in court on framed accusations, and thrown in jail.
Non-vibrant electorate
The strength of popular democracy lies in the doorstep of an enlightened electorate. The electorate, whose voice is loud and clear before, during, and after voting, with the strength to install and recall a representative through the powers of the ballot. A representative of such an electoral takes precautions to ensure that campaign promises are not just for the sake of winning an election, but such as must reach the light of day.
Such an enlightened electorate is unfortunately not yet a living part of African democracies, even now, over five decades past self-dealing at democratization.
Africa rather entails an electorate that is not properly organized, that does not know the do's and don’ts of the electoral process and procedure. An electorate that would prefer to stay at home on Election Day, because he or she is convinced that the election is already decided by the powers that be, before casting of vote.
The prevalent electorate in Africa is the kind that will not fight to enforce the impression of the voting day, because of the fear of 'a crush by the state machinery of armed forces'.
Lackluster and available-for-highest-bidder kind of electorate, such as need compulsion or enticement to perform what ought to be civic responsibility, is the electorate of Africa, even after six decades of democratic experience.
Citizenry's apathy for general elections
Due to noncompliance with releasing the results of the election as cast in the past, the general population across the continent has grown apathetic about performing their right to vote, civic responsibility, and electing the leaders of their choice through the ballot. Lack of performance by sitting leaders calling for reelection usually fails to interest the people because they have concluded that it will be an exercise in futility, since the incumbent factor allows the man at the helm to tamper with the process to his advantage. The conclusion in the minds of the people is that the election has been counted and allotted even before the election proper.
A veritable check of this widespread voter apathy is deducible in mission reports of international election observers, whose verdict put low turnout of voters to the tune of over 80% of elections monitored across the continent of Africa. The roll calls are many and involve most of the emerging democracies of African nations.
Rigging of elections in African democracies
Rigging of elections is by far the greatest anomaly of the electoral process in emerging democracies of Africa. As evident in the following instances, vote rigging brought President Bakili Muluzi of Malawi to power in 1999; vote rigging characterized the elections of President Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, and the rigged election that reelected President Ange-Felix Patasse of the Central African Republic in 1999. The recorded example of rigged elections dots the landscape of African leaders’ elections and re-elections. The following are a few of the established methods of rigging elections across the African democratic experience.
RIGGING OF THE ELECTION PROCESS IN AFRICA
Ballot stuffing,
Ballot stuffing, the fine name given to the irregularity of putting cast ballots in the voting boxes right before the election proper is conducted. This act of rigging is usually staged by the incumbent government through the hands of the electoral body, the use of hired thugs during elections, and the coercive use of state armed forces to harass any opposition to the exposure of such acts.
The flawed process of nomination of a candidate
The process and modality of nominating candidates for the various offices available for elections in most of the political parties in Africa is saddled with hurdles hard for anyone without a huge moneybag or godfather to surmount. The amount of money required to obtain the nomination forms is usually so outrageous that a candidate will have to possess bag bagload of cash or sort out a backer who is capable of coughing out such a sum to be able to purchase the form. Either way, the office is sold to the highest bidder; therefore, of necessity, the first course of action upon being successful at the poll is to recoup the sum of money invested to get to the office.
A further disadvantage of placing a high monetary tag on the nomination procedure is that it will keep away candidates with a genuine interest in the state and its people at heart from reaching the goal of serving the motherland.
After surpassing the stress of obtaining the nomination form comes the hurdle of gaining the party's recognition. This involves courting and creasing the hand of numerous kingmakers of the party. The more the party has been able to conquer the state machinery and keep power, the more difficult it is for the candidate to scale the roadblock of nomination proper. Because the number of seeker of the elective offices increase with the past successes, either through right effort or through fraudulent deals, of the party in the past polls.
Campaign fund sourcing and usage is another debacle on the shoulders of aspiring candidates, because most nations of Africa have no known functional laid down principle on how to source and use such funds. Hence, individuals (s) with large cash sag come to the rescue of stranded aspirants. And when in office, they become a hostage of the ‘big man’ who knotted the rescue at the point of need.
Registration of a political party
The manner of evolution of political parties in post-colonial Africa is devoid of ideological content. In the first decade of independence, nationalism formed the bastion of coming together of the people to formulate formidable political movements, which eventually metamorphosed into political parties.
Thereafter, ethnicity, individual relevance, and self-enrichment become the basis of forming political associations, which turn to political parties, which today hold Africa in the grip of undemocratic elements of its society.
In most cases, these people come together to form political parties without any connotation of ideology for the betterment of their society. Personal gain, self-perpetuation in power, and political relevance become the reasons for coming together to form political organizations. Hence, the reason the democracies of Africa remain moribund after six decades of democratization.
Because the emerging parties were not interested in carrying out the letters of the manifesto of the parties, even as concocted by their members, campaign promises never passed the arena in which they were pronounced on the campaign grounds.
In the party manifestoes are articles such as free education, sound infrastructure, water, road, electricity, freedom of speech and association, but on the ground are the lack of these noble ideals, while the party members grow larger than the state which they purposed to serve.
The derivable deduction on the ground in most African nations is that the parties, once in office, do whatever they fancy, irrespective of the article in the voiced manifesto.
The professed political parties were able, and are still able, to get away with these anomalies because the electoral apparatus on the ground, as formulated by the political elite, fails in its primary responsibility to regulate the activity of political parties.
Weak institutions of African states
The institutions, including those that support the electioneering process, in most African countries are usually ill-equipped and non-autonomous. An average electoral apparatus is tied to the strings of the presidency. The ruling parties, and particularly the presidents of most of the republics of Africa, are the ones who pay the pipers and hence dictate the tunes that the electoral body plays.
The electoral body gets its mandate, extent of work, and the tools to perform from the man in power. Hence, the umpire has to do the dictate of the party and the man in power to keep his or her office. Anyway, it is difficult and unexpected, mostly impossible, for the umpire to do otherwise, since he or she was installed, in the first place, to carry out the intention of the ruling political party.
Hence, to liberate most of the electoral bodies in Africa and have a dawn of fruitful electioneering engagement, as is the tune of global norms of democratic experience in other democracies across the world, there is an urgent need to ensure that the electoral bodies are made truly independent of the party in power.
The absence of national identification of citizens across the nations of Africa makes it difficult to monitor the real voters as presented by the voters' register. In most African states, it is like a deliberate policy not to have a national identification for the citizenry, so as not to be able to gauge the irregularities of multiple voting that puts fraudulent government in power.
Second-term fever
In the contemporary term of office in Africa, most elected officers commence scheming for a second term in office, on most occasions, before the onset of the first term of office. And this fever for the second term of office makes it impossible for them to concentrate undividedly attention on the task at hand. It also facilitates the waste of the common resources of the state in the settlement of the power that will put and retain them in office at all costs.
Meaning that most of the time spent in office is spent in politicking, one to amass enough wealth to withstand the second term battle, two to grease the palms of the power that are perceived as formidable for the actualization of their inordinate ambition.
Effective and proper culture of democratic experience has continued to elude the nations of Africa because of this stay-put-in-office pattern.
The state crafts suffer when the hands that ought to steer it are busy neglecting the main essence of seeking and holding an office, service to the state and its people.
• Sit-tight malady of African heads of government
The advanced stage of the second term fever is the sit-tight malady. This refers to the characteristics of wanting to remain in power till death do us part. An attitude that is synonymous with a noticeable number of heads of government in African states.
Leaders such as; President Omar Bongo of Gabon, the record holder of longest head of government in office in Africa (1967-2009) as at his demise in 2009, Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, the revolutionary leader and strongman of his nation (1969- ), Hosni Mubarak, born in 1928, military leader and president of Egypt (1981- ), Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, born in 1942, president of Equatorial Guinea (1979- ), President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, first prime minister (1980-1987), then president (1987-).
Aside the above leaders, who have strong grip on the rudders of their respective nations, we have countless despots from; Uganda, Idi Amin, president of Uganda (1971-1979), Nigeria, Sani Abacha, military president of Nigeria (1993-1998), Sierra Leone, Siaka Stevens, appointed prime minister of Sierra Leone in 1967, also became president in 1971 and served until his retirement in 1985, with thwarted attempts at sit-tight syndrome.
In both examples above, the lists are not exhausted.
The in-and-out deductions of the selfish and gutless attitude, as enumerated, are that it continually deprives the states concerned and the entire continent of Africa of the root it requires to join the league of democratic nations of the world.
Political dynasties in Africa, a retrogressive step
Another dark cloud in the process of democratization of Africa is the numerous cases of political dynasties that are growing unabated in noticeable countries of the continent. It is wrong enough that a cabal of political robbers holds the populations to ransom in most nations of Africa through their self-defined kind of multiparty democracies. But this ugly case of one family ruling millions of a nation’s citizens is a direct insult to the face of the continent that is always quick to announce that democracy has come to stay in Africa.
The longest serving head of government in Africa, Omar Bongo, President of Gabon, in the state he declared a one-party state in 1968, as he took office, until he kicked the bucket in 2009, with the continental record of 42 years of reign as the ultimate ruler of a state of Africa. And the next in line to the throne, a foregone issue, was narrowed down to either his daughter, Pascaline, a director in her father’s cabinet, or his son, Ali-Ben, vice President of his father’s party and former minister of defense. Family settlement has since conceded the party’s handling to the son. A common conclusion is that Ali-Ben will be the next President of Gabon.
A journey to Morocco reveals that Mohammed VI of Morocco heads the state, a throne he inherited from his father, King Hassan II, nine years earlier, in 1999. And the son of Mohammed VI, Moulay Hassan, has already been anointed a no-contest crown prince.
Swaziland, another monarchy with the face of a democracy, like Morocco, has Mswati III as its present King, designated as such after the demise of his father, Sobhuza II, in 1982, after ruling for 62 years, making him the longest reigning monarch in the world. The Democratic Republic of Congo is another pretension at the practice of democracy. Joseph Kabila, his father’s chief of army staff, took the reins of the state at age 29, when his father was shot in 2001. He initiated a referendum, which approved a new constitution, and won the presidential election of 2006. That makes him the first democratically elected President of the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1960.
In Togo, when General Gnasingbe Eyadema, the longest serving head of an African state at the time in 2005, with a record of 38 years in office, passed away, his son, Faure Gnasingbe, was sworn in as the President. Much pressure made him step aside after 20 days in office. He then contested a home election, which he duly won, amid cries of massive electoral fraud.
Impending news of expanding the dynasties of Africa are heard from Libya of Muammar Al-Qaddafi, 40 years on throne, Egypt of Hosni Mubarak, 28 years on throne, Angola of Dos Santos, 30 years on throne, Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe, 29 years on throne, Cameroon of Paul Biya, 27 years on throne, Uganda of Yoweri Museveni, 23 years on throne and Tunisia of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, 22 years on throne.
These are a sad commentary on the democratic states of Africa, in view of the strides that other continents of the world are making in the consolidation of multiparty democracy.
Luxury of elective office in Africa
The power, wealth, and luxury associated with high office in Africa are some of the great attractions that draw aspirants without a shade of common good in their intention of seeking office and retaining it.
These lures of office, over time, become so intoxicating that African warriors, such as Mugabe of Zimbabwe, lose their humanity and intelligence in them, and seek only that which can maintain them in power by all means thinkable and unthinkable, the drunkenness that makes them above the state and law of the land. And view any kind of criticism, even as it is for the advancement of the nation, as a threat to their continued hold on power, and as such, they need to be dealt a killer blow.
But if such dare the tiger on the throne be of valor, then, such lives as enemies of the state, permanently in opposition and always kept from reaching the seat of governance.
These sit-tight leaders deprive the states of Africa of the input that is derivable from the benefit of varying personalities, which exposes the leadership of the nation to different ideologies and dynamism.
African disputed elections
Evidence of far from home of the democratic experience in Africa is easily recognizable in the numerical strength of disputed elections across the face of African democracies. Some such disputations are depicted by the characters listed.
Sitting president Kibaki of Kenya was declared the winner of the December 2007 presidential election despite widespread evidence of vote rigging.
The top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, claimed he had won the election, based on the tallied results that came out of the various polling stations. Yet the electoral body refused to declare the voice of the people. Weeks of bloodshed and destruction ensued as Kibaki’s and Odinga’s supporters, divided along ethnic lines, clashed over the dispute. More than 1,000 people were killed in the unrest, which damaged Kenya’s long-standing reputation for stability. A power-sharing agreement was finally reached in late February 2008, following mediation by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and intense international pressure. In the agreement, Odinga dropped his claim to the presidency and accepted the newly created position of prime minister.
In Zimbabwe, Presidential and parliamentary elections were held concurrently in March 2008. ZANU-PF, the party of sitting President Mugabe, lost its majority for the first time since independence in 1980, winning 97 seats in the 210-seat House of Assembly. The MDC won 99 seats, and a breakaway MDC faction won 10 seats; the remainder went to independents. The results for the Senate were evenly divided, with ZANU-PF and the combined opposition each taking 30 seats. Meanwhile, the election commission delayed announcing the results of the presidential election. The MDC claimed that Tsvangirai won just over 50 percent of the vote, making a runoff unnecessary, but the Mugabe camp disputed those claims and called for a recount. International pressure was mounted on Tsvangirai, since Mugabe has secluded himself, to place restraint on the fight for the right, not further disintegrate an already ailing nation. He succumbed and accepted a government of national unity as mediated by South Africa, in which he serves as the prime minister.
In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni became embroiled in more controversy as he prepared for reelection in February 2006. He caused international concern when he facilitated changes in the constitution in 2005 that allowed him to run for a third term. In addition, his leading opponent, Kizza Besigye, claimed that the government sought to derail his campaign by charging him with rape and treason in the run-up to the balloting. Besigye was cleared of the rape charges but had to appear in court repeatedly during the campaign to defend himself. Besigye filed suit charging that the February polling had been rigged. In April 2006, Uganda's Supreme Court validated Museveni's election victory. The court declared in a split decision that, despite irregularities in the election, the evidence presented would not have reversed the results. Museveni was sworn into office for a third term in May 2006.
Adjudged free and fair elections.
In the midst of less than encouraging outcomes of election processes in Africa, a handful of nations have been able to present a gleam of light in the darkness of unfair and not free elections that characterize Africa’s experience with democracy.
Mauritania held its first fully democratic elections since independence in 2006 for the national assembly. Presidential elections followed in 2007, as the final stage in the transition to democratic rule. Sidi Mohamed Ould Chelth Abdallahi, an independent candidate, won the runoff election with 53 percent of the votes. And the election observer from Europe submitted that the Mauritanian elections were free and fair.
South Africa’s first truly non-racial democratic elections took place in 1994 and were declared substantially free and fair by the independent electoral commission. ANC received a remarkable 62 percent of the close to 20 million votes.
The African National Congress (ANC) won more than 66 percent of the vote in South Africa's second all-race elections on June 2, 1999. As the majority party in the incoming parliament, the ANC on June 16 elected Thabo Mbeki, the head of the ANC and outgoing president Nelson Mandela's handpicked successor, as the country's new president. That successfully makes South Africa among the few shining stars in the dark cloud of irregular democracies of Africa.
After the Liberian civil war, elections were held under considerable international observation. Presidential and legislative elections were held in 1997. Charles Taylor, the Liberian warlord for the past years, was elected a popular leader in the election won by his party. The elections were adjudged fair and free by international election observers.
Khama became Botswana's first president in 1966. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), founded by Seretse Khama, won a large majority in the elections held in 1969, 1974, and 1979. When Khama died in 1980, his vice president, Guett Ketumile Joni Masire, became the president and was easily reelected in 1984, 1989, and 1994 elections. After the retirement of Masire in 1998, he was succeeded by his vice president, Festus Mogae, who won election in 1999 and 2004. In 2008, Seretse Ian Khama, son of Seretse Khama, became the president of Botswana. Hence, Botswana remains a shining star in the emergence of popular democracy in Africa.
Ghana, the first to gain independence in sub-Saharan Africa, made history once again in 2009, as it became the first to have an incumbent defect in office, through an election that was adjudged free of widespread irregularity.
Unfortunately, the number of free and fair elections in Africa is nothing to write home about, because less than 3 percent of elections since independence can wear such a toga.
Electoral fraud in Africa
The climate of African democracies was and is still characterized by heaps of unfairness and irregularities. This evident lack of firm grip on the rudder of democracy on the continent has continued to undermine its social and economic growth.
Egypt’s first multiparty elections took place in 2005. Hosni Mubarak was easily reelected with more than 85 percent despite a low turnout of voters and the opposition party's charge election fraud loud and clear.
In 2003, Olusegun Obasanjo, sitting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, won a reelection to another term of four years in a wide margin. International observers criticized the election for unprecedented incidents of electoral fraud in many states of Nigeria.
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was reelected president in 2002, amidst allegations of voter intimidation and a wide range of irregularities. International observers declared the election flawed.
In the Cameroon general election of 1997, Paul Biya’s party won a majority of seats amid violent confrontations, allegations of electoral fraud. The three opposition parties boycotted the October presidential elections. Biya won in a landslide and got reelection. Observers submitted that voter turnout was low.
These sad commentaries are not limited to the countries stated, but a good sample of the fraud called elections in Africa of the 21st century, after over six decades of experimentation with purported multiparty democracy.
Maturation of African democracy
The way forward in the journey of Africa states in the evolution of government of the people by the people for the people is the maturation of the various processes that have failed to yield dividend because some few bad element compromised the values inherent in the various systems attempted, as a proper scrutiny of the outline of governance shows that there is no problem with the articles of the frameworks but the hindrance lies with the operators of the system. Hereunder, let’s attempt to deal with the possible ingredients for the maturation of African democracy to meet the best standard of democratic practice as played out in firm democracies across the world.
A need for an effective electoral system in Africa
An election is the procedure that allows members of a community to elect representatives who will hold a position of authority within its borders on behalf of the community. Election is one most important cardinal principles of representation in a democracy. The prevalent forms of elections are those set to elect the leaders of local, state, and national governments.
An effective electoral system allows the people the chance to decide who will lead the nation in the offices available at various tiers of governance and therefore effectively enable them to influence the policies, programs, and direction of actions of the sitting government.
Invariably, a grounded electoral system promotes accountability, as the possibility of defeat at the subsequent polls mounts pressure on the elected office holder to make the aspiration and welfare of the state a paramount responsibility.
An election in a democracy takes place at regular intervals, which is commonly pegged at four to five-year terms across nations (practicing democracy) of the world. This process of putting a time span on the occupation of elective office is a sweet seasoning to spice the flavor of democratic government because it forces an elected representative to make certain that they put in their best in the service to the state to safeguard the possibility of their coming to campaign for reelection.
Hence, the states of Africa need to put in place an effective electoral system that can allow the voices of the people to matter during the formulation of laws that are to govern the electoral process, make the atmosphere during elections conducive to both the voters and aspirants, and allow smooth judicial interpretation in the event of disputes after the elections.
THE JUDICIARY AND DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA
The judicial process goes a long way in dictating the dynamism of a society. The evolution of a society across time is directly linked to the action or inaction of its adjudicating system for actualizing positive changes in its polity. Hence, at every junction in the development of a society, the judiciary must be of strong integrity to give a qualitative and sound decision in matters affecting social changes of the nation.
For the democracies of Africa to really develop, the judiciary, that characterized as the last hope of the oppressed, must divest itself from the apron of the sitting government, and rather judge with a mind that is fair and free of prejudice in all issues before it for consideration. The nations of the continent, as of other lands of the world, have a judicial process of varying degrees of effectiveness and fairness in the discharge of their justice.
As things stand at the moment in most African states, the judiciary is yet to be up and doing in the effective discharge of its duties in terms of the interventional role expected of it in the democratization of the democracies of Africa.
If a dispute occurs between the state and the people, the federating unit and the central government, or within and between political parties. The judiciary is expected to be the last hope of the one seeking redress and ought to be able to get justice within the umbrella of the constitution of the republic, as dispensed with without fear or favor.
Though right in so many cases, the judiciary is still largely viewed as the extension of the executive arm of the government, as most time the sort of verdict they give between the parties and the central body tends to always be in favor of the central. Also, between any opposition and the serving party, the serving party always carried the day, even when the opposition and the people expected a verdict in the opposite direction. Hence, the judiciary needs to be strengthened to move the democracy of Africa to the desired level aspired by its people.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE
As things stand, African nations need, very urgently, constitutions that are as fortified a city, where the state and its citizens can effectively take solace. Africa needs to find the temerity to gather the voices of its citizens in an articulated manner to voice a constitution of the people by the people. The powers that be always say that such a venture will break the nations to pieces because of the diversity of the people, as if the continent of Africa is the only one on the globe with multiple ethnicities. The crux of the matter, as events of the past six decades have shown, is that they hide under the cover of diversity to play the cards that have so far kept them in power.
Africa needs to rise above the slavery that the ambition of a few has placed on its nations, and fashion a constitution that will safeguard the interests, aspirations, and fulfillment of both its constituent parts and the whole nation in one draft. Let’s digress a little and define what can enable the constitutional stride of African nations.
THE CONSTITUTION
A constitution in a polity is the fundamental system of law, written or unwritten, of a sovereign state, established or accepted as a guide for the governance of the state. A constitution fixes the limits and defines the relations of the legislative, judicial, and executive powers of the state, thus setting up the basis for governance. It also provides guarantees of certain rights to the people. The constitution is commonly referred to as the article of faith of a nation.
For a constitution to be fundamental and of wide acceptance, it must be put together through a process that ensures the input of a wide range of the people that it is supposed to guide and protect.
The constitution of a polity must not only define and guarantee the fundamental laws of the state; it must also state the constitutional rights of its citizens, as protections and privileges under law which are set out in the constitution or based on constitutional provisions as can be interpreted by a court in case(s) of infringement.
The most fundamental rights that the constitution is expected to protect include, but are not limited to, adherence to due process of law, guaranteed civil rights and civil liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, restraint on police methods, right to acquittal, and court-certified search warrant.
The above-mentioned are basic rights expected of the people from the state; unfortunately, an average African state infringes on these rights at will to satisfy the whim of the rulers as the need arises. Numerous are the cases of sitting political rulers who have manipulated the constitution of their states to satisfy their individual caprice. African heads of government, therefore, need to locate the will to allow the letters of the constitution to govern their nations without interference.
INDEPENDENT AND PROFESSIONAL MEDIA FOR AFRICA
The communication media, including newspapers, books, televisions, radios, and magazines, must be free from government controls and censorship as guaranteed in the constitution. Freedom of the press in a democratic society is regarded as fundamental to human rights. Hence, without free media, a free society and democratic self-rule will be a mirage.
For effective maturation of democracy in Africa, the media needs to be vibrant, independent, and professional, totally free from the interference of the state and powerful individuals. The mass media must be able to gather, evaluate, and distribute facts of current affairs and interest without fear of harassment or intimidation.
The reporters must be able to research and transmit information for both print and electronic distribution without hindrance. Implicitly, meaning that the press must possess immunity to transmit its information without control or censorship by any governmental agency. The mass media should be free to cover and transmit information on electoral policies, elections, and election outcomes without fear or favor.
Freedom of the press, however, cannot be absolute. The principle has long been established that the press may not be used in circumstances that would create a danger of consequence to the stability of the state.
Enlightenment on universal suffrage
The average citizen across the nations of Africa is in dire need of enlightenment on the strength of universal adult suffrage. Both the educated and illiterate make up most African states need enlightenment on the power of the voice in the election of those who steer the wheel of the state on behalf of all.
The citizens who are responsible for voting the aspirant to office need to be knowledgeable about the fact that the power of their votes does not end in the election of a government but also in ensuring that they are in place doing the will of the electorate according to the letters of the constitution and campaign promises.
The responsibility of propagating this enlightenment should not be left in the hands of the government, who usually have a personal or party agenda distinct from those of the people and the state.
Rather, the mass media, civil society, and well-established social critics should drive the engine of the reorientation that is needed to energize the power, the strength of the people’s voice that will give democracy a stronghold across the soil of Africa.
The campaign should be geared towards integrating the values of an endearing democracy, such that it can strengthen and protect the common goal and good of the nation. Such a campaign should be able to inculcate the values, such that the populace appreciates the fact that they can unseat any government that runs contrary to the will and good of the people.
The necessity to vote at election time and the necessity to protect the verdict must be propagated in the languages of the society. So that an average citizen will know how to listen to campaign promises, know how to interpret such promises, and also how to insist on the actualization of the promises made before taking office by elected officials.
A further important enlightenment campaign is such as should be targeted at making the citizens, who are capable of standing for vote as patriotism dictates, believe in the worth of coming out for elective offices, so that the steer of the nation can be returned to the people.
African citizens have left the reign of their government too long in the hands of political vultures, who seek offices to entrench corruption and perpetuate themselves in office at the detriment of the common good.
Hence, there is an urgent need for effective machinery that can educate the people across Africa on what to vote for, such as manifestos that meet their aspirations, and how to vote, as well as the know-how of dos and don’ts of an election, also how to protect their mandate, as they keep vigil throughout the collation to the final announcement of the election results.
The might of the majority in a democracy, that the electorates are more than the aspirants, should be drummed into the consciousness of the citizens, so that they can appreciate the strength of the weapon in their arsenal. And know how to call on the powers of recall it entails to unseat anyone voted into office on presented false pretenses, as those who turn a reverse character after taking office.
For most African countries living between the third and sixth decades of self-rule, the time to tell the selected few among their fabric, who crave misrule, enough is enough, is right now, when the effect of misappropriation and mismanagement that they and their predecessor created bites the people the most amidst plenty.
State of democracy in Africa in 2008
In the 1990s, single-party states and military dictatorships were the most prevalent forms of ruling across sub-Saharan Africa. But as the move towards the 2000s gains momentum, the Western world starts to prioritize effective governance and respect for internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. Nonetheless, efforts at democracy and human rights face severe challenges. These still make the African record a poor one, consisting of conflict outbursts, youth militancy, weak institutions and leadership, disunity among racial, religious, and ethnic groups, corruption and poor governance, even after over five decades of self-rule across the continent. to recognize that Africa should not be only about resources, between 11 and 32 countries, yield to the strength of agitation, and make significant strides towards free and fair elections. Hence, a need exists for coordinated agitations across Africa to make the leadership stock awake and steadfast on the need to promote and respect the universal human rights of its citizens.
A continent of Africa with deep-rooted democracies is achievable if the states and their peoples strive to have an effective conflict resolution modality, find the will to live together amid religion and ethnic diversity, strengthen the rule of law, and allow free media and effective social criticism.
To get there, the nations must embody effective campaigns during electioneering, generate functional grassroots outreach machinery, and allow the media a free rein in the drive to democratization of the nations of Africa.
The right of the citizens to change their government must be made paramount by allowing duly scheduled elections to take place as scheduled. The police should be trained on the need to act with restraint before, during, and after elections, to cut short the rampant cases of arbitrary and unlawful killings and excessive use of force that characterize their actions.
The judiciary should be reinforced, strengthened, and empowered to consistently ensure due process of litigation, before, during, and after elections. The influence of the executive arm of government on the judiciary process should be removed. That is, the judiciary should be fully independent of the executive arm of government, both in administration and financial capability.
For the judiciary to perform its expected role in the uplift of Africa from the shackles of autocracy, there is a need for it to free itself from corruption and inefficiency that is its prevailing lot at the moment.
The nations of Africa, as a matter of exigency, need to locate the nerve center of the transitional election process, the protection of minority rights, and the respect of human rights to international best practice.
For the democracies of African nations to attain the height as demanded by democratic nationhood, the populace, especially the youth of the continent, must wake up to the reality on the ground, that the present ruling cabals have failed the continent, and take the direction of tomorrow of its democracy into their hands.
Hence, there is an urgent need for mass enlightenment of the population on how to make political cartels that dot the landscape of Africa give way to competent and patriotic leadership.
Time to wake the collective psyche of the people to the reality that representative multiparty democracy is the only way forward for the governance of the nations of a well-endured Africa is now. Time to drive self-serving political robbers out of state houses of Africa can’t be a better time than now, as the transitional trains across countries of Africa edge towards the seventh decade of self-rule.
The people should be enlightened, motivated, and encouraged both by local agencies and international pressure groups through the instrumentation of free press and vibrant engine of civil society, to know their right, act on their right, and actualize their right at every turn of the journey to societal emancipation.
The cabals gather themselves, groom their replacements, and perpetuate themselves to cornered powers from one generation to another, to the detriment of the good of the nations and their people, who were purported to have elected them to rule.
Time for the youth, the blood in the veins of the society, to stop complaining and start asking, insisting, and fighting for the right direction and progress of democracy in Africa is now, since the bulk of the nations of the continent have come to accept popular democracy as the preferred mode of government for their states. That will invariably imply that the people will be fighting to insist on the system of government that the world has come to accept as the most stable and most representative of known forms of governance.
The youths of Africa must unite and use their numerical advantage to insist on a democratic culture in their different nations. The prolonged docility of the masses has so far failed to lift up the society. For far too long an era, the self-ordained few have lingered too long in the corridors of power across the lands of Africa, such that the luxuries of offices have blinded these leaders to the common good of the nations. The resources of the nations that they have been stealing for over six decades have become the instrument they harness to raise, train, and arm thugs to suppress all forms of opposition to their perpetuation in power.
As subtle agitation has failed to change the tide of Africa’s political destiny, the time has come for dynamism of engagement to change; it is time to play the only option left, to take the agitation from the pages of the newspapers to the streets of African nations. And give the elected official a reason to believe that ultimate powers reside with the electorate in a popular democracy.
This sixth decade of freedom from colonial rule should be closed with a message to the selected few that the vibe of a democracy lies with the numerical strength of the voters, not only at the campaign for office and making the office, but more importantly, to stay in office as elected by universal adult suffrage. In other words, to turn the lots of the nations of the African countries in the match to stable self-governance, the youths must constitute themselves as the engine of change that can make power change hands from corrupt and self-seekers, who reign at the moment, to another that will be genuinely interested in the uplift of the continent and its people.
Africa must do away with the present ruling class that has come to be bigger than the entire nation, and have made themselves above the laws of the land, such that no instrument of the court can pronounce them guilty even when they are visibly wrong, as neither can the police dare to touch them as they have constituted themselves too connected to the ruling nerve.
Only the populace owns the power, either through peaceful protest or violent agitation, to move the present impostors out of the comfort zone they have carved for themselves, since no human being voluntarily relinquishes self-preservation. Hence, the masses of Africa should not expect the powers that be to promulgate policies or strengthen the institution of state to the degree that it will drive itself out of power and reach of the resources of the state.
A return to the account for the ills and crimes (in the fashion of south African’s truth and reconciliation commission of 1996 after demise of apartheid) of the past must be initiated with a view to heal those who are wrongly victimized so that the match forward would be free and fair, with guaranteed endurable tenet of democracy, in protected rights and relieve from suffering.
African institutions need to be strengthened to meet the yearning of the people and international standards through the initiation of elections that meet international standards, aided by independent and professional media and a thriving civil society.
In order to effectively mature democracy in Africa, the government at the local level must be strengthened through capacity building by organizing seminars for its officials and elected officials on public involvement in democracy on a constant Basis.
The sixth decade of democracy in Africa. The commencement of the sixth decade of self-government in Africa is characterized by countries coming out of various kinds of conflict, conflicts that are inflicted by autocratic rules, mismanagement and misappropriation of resources, corruption in high places, ethnic dissatisfaction, and military intervention in statecraft. From Angola to Sierra Leone, Rwanda to Guinea-Bissau, and the democratic republic of Congo to Mozambique, we note various kinds of conflict consequences of bad governance.
Across history, there existed various forms of legitimate government, but surely in the 21st century, the only system that has stood the test of time is legitimacy through democracy. Thus, multiparty elections should be the way to power in the countries of Africa, as in other continents of the world.
The kind of election that Africa needs at this junction is such that can lead to the emergence of a government with the development of its state and its people as its projected output. Such that will banish tyranny, end corruption, and grow the economy.
Good governance is the way for African democracies to strive and unlock the potential of their people for the match to stable and successful continent.
In this century and this decade of African advancement, its constituent countries should create a climate where their people can start a business that can grow in a competitive environment. The present rule of brutality, tyranny, and bribery must give way to the rule of law and order.
As at this decade of African nationhood, it is sad, that, Kenya had a conclusive election in 2008, and was forced to run a government of national unity, because the man, Mwai Kibaki at the helm of state affair during election feels that he should rule forever, by imploring the electoral body to withheld election result, threw the country into arena of bloodshed and destruction. The same story we have witnessed in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has made the presidency his personal possession.
Despite these disheartening tales, Africa must locate the will and strength to send these men out of the state houses of its nation. Africa must be made bigger than its self-imposed big men in power.
The need for accountable governments in Africa is put in place to serve the people of a nation. The government is expected to maintain law and order in a state. But unfortunately, across the nations of Africa, this notion is served in the opposite direction. What is in place as government is rather used to undermine the nation and its people.
Cases of non-availability of infrastructure, such as roads, water, and electricity, remain the norm in most nations of Africa. Infrastructural failure serves as a constant reminder that a government, as desired by the people, only lives in the recesses of their psyche.
Everywhere are the cases of failed institutions such as electoral commissions, water boards, electrical authorities, school systems, health facilities, banking systems, communication commissions, etc.
The failure of these facilities is noticeable in the inability of the various states of Africa to sustain a functional educational system, where public schools can provide adequate, sound, and competitive training to their ever-bourgeoning school seekers. Rather, what is on the ground is a system that makes it impossible for low-income earners to be able to send their wards to school on account of a lack of school fees, plus bribes to pay their way through the compromised registration system of the school authorities. On the other hand, those who manage to find their way into any of the schools are given half-baked education consequent of not enough classrooms and fewer than enough number of ill-equipped teachers, this sorry state is the same from the pre-primary to the tertiary institutions of learning.
The same sorry story as illustrated for the education system is apparent in the health institution as other major infrastructure of the state.
One of the most dangerous aspects of this institutional failure is the peculiar cases of non-functional electoral systems. This ought to be the base upon which the people decide the caliber of people that are to be elected to serve the needs of the nation and its people. What is rather in place are electoral commissions that are not accountable to the people who are to participate in the elections. The apparent lack of accountability of the electoral process is because the electoral bodies are in the hands of the ruling political party.
Lack of financial accountability is a big setback in the development of democratic government in the nations of Africa. The people are aware that the continent is endowed with abundant resources, but the dividends of it are forever as a mirage to them. Everywhere telescoped in the vast land of Africa shows that few among many have easily been able to corner the resources of the state to the detriment of the nation. And this tendency makes corruption one of the biggest problems in the advancement of representative government in Africa. As the states are sapped by a handful of its citizens, who have no other source of income than the resources that are supposed to be used to smoothly run the engines of the state.
In its sixth decade of independence, these are the issues of the people of Africa with its government because most of the countries of the continent have not been able to evolve a representative government that is accountable to its people, both in terms of elections of the leaders and the recall of erring elected officials.
As stated earlier in this narration, the salvation of the nations of Africa lies squarely on the shoulders of its youth, who by good fortune, are in the majority. They represent the group that should agitate and dictate the state of affairs across the nations of Africa. The political bandits, who are at the moment enjoying the commonwealth, cannot be relied upon to release the nation from the shackles of underdevelopment. It’s indeed an unfounded expectation to expect the beneficiary of a manipulated system to wake up and put in place a policy that will unseat it from the very corridor of power it cherishes so much. Plenty of dirty deals, they do to get to power, so to expect the syndicates in power across Africa to willingly make statecraft accountable to the people will be like expecting a constant bright sunny day at midnight.
Changes urgently needed, most start with insisting on the overhaul of the electoral process. African nations require changing the system of governance that favors the selection, hand-picking, of office holders in the name of elections by a privileged few through a compromised electoral process.
Conclusion
As Africa live in the sixth decade of democratic statehood and moves towards the seventh decade, it should be prepared to put behind it the failed system of the past and put in its place a right value system that will enhance the voices of the people, in the making of ‘the peoples constitution’, that guide living together, in the border of law and order. Institutionalize a functional electoral process-from getting started for elections through the elections of representatives to the removal from office of a faulty representative. Africa must embrace tangible political reforms that guarantee the people of basic political rights.
A right value system needs to be put in place that will encourage the advancement of the state above the incline of the party in power. The case that occurred in Nigeria in 1993, the annulment of the upheld as free and fair election of Chief MKO Abiola, by a handful of military adventurists in politics, should be made impossible in the new direction for African governments as it edges towards its seventh decade of self-rule.
Bibliography
Berkeley, Bill. The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa.
Apollos, O. Nwauwa. Concept of democracy and democratization in Africa revisited.
