Political scientist Dr. Kunle Fagbemi has said Western-style democracy has failed to reflect Africa’s social, cultural and political realities, calling for a rethink of the system across the continent.
Fagbemi made the statement during an interview on ARISE News on Thursday while discussing the challenges facing democracy in Nigeria and Africa.
He said the democratic model currently practised across the continent was imposed rather than adapted to existing African systems of governance.
“The first thing we need to understand is that all the variables that you alluded to are factors affecting the way and manner we practice democracy thus far on the African continent, and not just Nigeria alone.”
“When you take a look at the issues, you can start talking from the perspective of the fact that what we are currently practicing on the continent, Nigeria inclusive, was literally imposed upon us and not allowed to acculturate, as it were, for us to adapt elements that will make it easy for us to continue the system of governance that put a number of the kingdoms, a number of the empires on the African continent into the limelight.”
Fagbemi said African societies abandoned established governance principles from historical empires and kingdoms and adopted Western liberal democracy without adequately adapting it to local realities.
“All the principles of governance that we were having under the Songhai Empire, the Mali Empire, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, the Old Oyo Kingdom, the Benin Kingdom, and we assumed this Western liberal democracy.”
He said the adoption had created gaps between institutional frameworks and the social realities of African societies.
“And we have now seen that there are epistemological concerns, particularly those ones that have to do with: How do you correlate institutional frameworks that are now defined by legal and policy frameworks with our social existence and our history? And these are the areas where we have been having issues.”
According to Fagbemi, African countries need to examine their own realities and develop democratic systems that reflect them.
“And what Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan were trying to say to us is that it is time for us to take a closer look at our realities and become more pragmatic to come up with autochthonous definitions of a number of these issues.”
He also argued that African governance should draw from the continent’s traditional systems while retaining safeguards against abuses.
“I am part of a group that studies the democratic sustenance scheme on the continent, and it is concluded that the only way out is for us to begin to elevate the traditional African governance system in such a way that we will begin to draw more from the inspirations that we can derive from the traditional African system. And that is where we have to go to.”
Fagbemi said the objective should not be a return to traditional systems in their entirety, but the recovery of useful elements that can strengthen contemporary democratic governance.
“What President Obasanjo, President Jonathan are saying—and all those of us who are pushing for an Afrocentric democracy are saying—is that there are critical elements of the real socio-cultural realities of the Nigerian or African continent that we can draw inspiration from.”
He said African democratic systems must also be built around strong institutions rather than individuals.
“We discuss it in other language and we say, we need to have strong institutions rather than strong individuals.”
Fagbemi said the failure to build strong institutions was allowing political leaders to dominate democratic structures across the continent.
“And that is what is currently even replicating itself in the Western liberal democracy that we are practicing—that you now have a certain incumbent president, either in Cameroon, in Niger Republic, Mali, or any other country of the continent, and you now have the weak institutions and everybody bows to the strong individual rather than the institutions and the principles and policies.”
He said Africa must also confront what he described as the dominance of Eurocentric ideas in its political and social systems.
“The major issue that we are dealing with is a crisis of identity, is a crisis of acculturation and unwillingness to decolonize and to deconstruct things that have become problematic.”
Fagbemi said African democracy should ultimately be shaped around the continent’s development needs rather than external economic interests.
“And this is one of the reasons why we need to revisit the conceptualization, we need to revisit the practice of our democracy, and we need to ensure that our economic integration is re-invigorated in such a way that our agenda will now be integrated national development and growth, and not just the GDP language that suits the Western hemispheric economic interest and agenda.”
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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