Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that democracy in Africa is not just failing but dying, attributing its decline to a lack of alignment with African values and realities.
Speaking at the 60th birthday colloquium of former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha, in Abuja, Obasanjo questioned whether Africa was truly practicing democracy or merely adopting a flawed version of Western liberal democracy.
“If you are talking about democracy failing in Africa, democracy in Africa has failed. And why has it failed? Because in context and in content, it is not Africa. It does not have any aspect of our culture, our way of life, what we stand for, what we believe,” he said.
“Are we talking of democracy or are we talking of western liberal democracy. When we talk of democracy, we should remember that in Africa, before the colonial rule and the colonial power, we had a form of government, which attended to the needs of our people. And whatever you call it, to me, it is democracy. Because what is democracy about? The American president Abraham Lincoln defined it as government of the people, by the people, for the people.
“Democracy is meant to be a system of government that delivers and delivers to all the people, not just a section of the people, not just a few. But what do we have today? I believe since we’ve gone past the Greek democracy which brought everybody to the square and everybody has a say in the decision making which affected everybody, democracy has now become representative democracy and representative democracy has not taken care of everybody.”
Obasanjo argued that Africa had its own governance systems before colonial rule, which better served its people. He criticised the current system, saying it enables leaders to “grab everything illegally and corruptly” while telling the people to “go to court,” even when justice is unattainable.
“Today, we have democracy, which is government of small number of people, by small number of people over large number of people who are deprived of what they need to have in life. That is not democracy that will endure.
“It is, I am because I can grab. What sort of democracy brings you and you grab everything and then illegally, corruptly and you say go to court. When you know that even in the court, you cannot get justice. It’s not that democracy is failing, democracy is dying and if we are going to make democracy not to die, we have to look at democracy in the context and in the content of Africa. I hope that we will get to that stage so that democracy which will deliver will be the democracy that we will have in Africa.”
