Over the past five decades, Africa has had – and continues to deal with a number of issues affecting its development including corruption, preventable diseases, insecurity, malnutrition, poor education all resulting from bad governance. This is due to the weak nature of its political systems and the institutions that come with it. Africa’s political systems, inherited from colonialism – are not indigenous to African values, practices and social norms, and therefore create room that allows African terrorist-leaders to rob their people and rape Africa’s greatest natural national resources.
The greatest challenges facing Africa today are not bad governance and corruption, HIV and AIDS, Ebola, conflicts and wars, floods or food insecurity; because they are the end-results of the “inherited sate” which relies on a western style characterized political system (democracy).
Many argue that democracy is the “least harmful” of all political systems, thus creates the path for progress, which is in reality the aspiration of every visionary nation. But no, democracy based on Western concept is not the way to Africa’s development: not a single African country has been able to archive greater heights of economic freedom and prosperity of their population under the current so-called “democratic jurisdictions”. This experience shows how western democracy has heavily failed Africa. It must be redefined within an African context.
Democracy is not the “governance or power of the people by the people and for the people” as delineated by the republican and antislavery hero, Abraham Lilcon. Arguing that democracy is governance by the people engenders the myth of self-government and suggests that the people evidently know their needs and tell their leaders what to do and how to go about it. It means that people live in a society where important issues about their welfare are subject to public debate and objective analyses by the people themselves. In such a society, the citizens have the right and the duty to hold leadership accountable, and none, absolutely no one is beyond critique.
Arguing that democracy is governance for the people implies that people who are chosen to “be at the top” are required to prioritize the needs of the people who chose them, work solely for their [people] prosperity without in actual sense expect to gain anything in turn. That is in essence healthy politicking. However, unfortunately, many “democratically elected leaders” in Africa earn while in office more than double the net worth of American presidents whereas the citizens suffer of hunger, malnutrition, preventable diseases and so on.
Western style democracy has created (economic and social) inequality in Africa because the so-called democratically elected leaders are only feeding on public funds to enrich themselves and their families at the expense of the most vulnerable in the society who suffer the end result – the end result being bad governance – the root cause of Africa’s retrogressive sate. When in Africa, democratic elections are synonym of war, hatred and disunity – must we sacrifice innocent lives in the name of a certain political philosophy whose consequences are becoming increasingly unbearable?
Even as at now, the outcome of the wars declared against bad governance in Africa by self-proclaimed development partners and their financial institutions (and paradoxically encouraged by the same institutions over the years by means of lending money to collapsing countries even when it is obviously evident these countries cannot afford to pay back) has not been desirable. This is again a clear manifestation of the failure of the “imported state” in Africa.
Why it is not working and will not in Africa
Under democratic jurisdictions and given democratic principles, anyone elected to lead any group or society has a limited duration of working period mostly determined by legal texts such constitution, statute… So in context, the legal texts determine how long a democratically elected leader should be in office after which another democratically elected leader takes over – that’s a good thing… In partisan politics, a person may democratically run a country for two terms, each term comprised of four or five years depending on the country – implying that the leader elected under democratic guise may run a country for eight or ten years respectively.
However, regrettably, many African intellectuals take advantage of weak democratic institutions to enrich themselves at the greatest expense of the “ordinary citizens”. In most African societies, it appears the citizens don’t know what their needs are – it’s political leaders who determine what to do for them when voted into power by making endless, oiled-up, romantic and oftentimes unrealistic promises only during electioneering period. But this is absolutely wrong under democratic principles – because democracy is “governance by the people”, the people must be left to decide on what is good for them.
The political parties that many folks create in Africa are not inspired by public well-being or vested interest, but rather in pursuit of their own parochial interests. Most if not to say all African states do not have any long-term national development agenda or plan which could serve as a guide to all political office holders from the presidency to state-controlled institutions.
This means that a country’s development direction may change when a new set of leaders from different political divide takes over the management of the country. The consequence is that many vital development projects instituted by a particular political entity would be left off without completion.
It is evident that, the “inherited state” has without contraction failed Africa.
Laws must be in place to compel political parties to formulate their manifestos based on the country’s development agenda. This is, maybe, the only to ensure Africa’s political systems be of benefits to the vulnerable.