The travesty of Democracy and the mediocrity showcased in the just concluded Equatorial Guinea’s Presidential election is one of the reasons Africa has become the butt of bad jokes and a perennial laughing stock whenever the word democracy is mentioned.
I always wonder why we insist and idolize democracy, a foreign Western borrowed system if it cannot work for us in Africa like in the case of Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.
Why thrive on Cosmetic Elections that waste little resources and time when we know too well that the outcome would be predetermined by the Paul Biyas of this world? Come to think of it. Is it even worth it to vote?
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Western powers have been pressing many countries in Africa to organize elections and establish the so-called democracy. This is the Western ideal with no footing in some African countries.
But this farfetched spectacle of Democracy has only sufficed as a convenient conveyor belt to autocracy and dictatorship in some countries, the foreign demands to hold free Elections have more often produced a facsimile and fallacies than the real thing.
I have come to my conclusion that democracy in Africa is just a fuss and an easy conduit for the Electoral stakeholders to squander donor money and government resources, nothing less. To believe otherwise is to risk being either naive or mentally derailed.
And at times, this fallacy’s unintended consequences can be even worse. How many African countries have plunged into unprecedented chaos because of bad Elections? Many and the eminent risk still looms for some. Soon there will be several coups and attempted coups like the one of Sao Tome.
In Sao Tome which is off the gulf of Guinea, there was an attempted coup on Thursday 24 November 2022 because of bad election hangover traits. I must say that calm has been restored, PM Patrice Trovoada is back in power but one cannot rule out more of these attempted coups.
But why do we have coups in Africa? It is because the so-called western style of Democracy has failed in Africa and because democracy is an Institutional Transplant, a borrowed system imposed on the African cultures that are not compatible with it. We don’t understand values and we have thinned our morals.
It is sad that Africa has imported some social practices that work elsewhere which are obnoxious and problematic plight to Africa. The continent can never put upon itself, the burden of this so-called democracy which outweighs the benefits in reality.
Any student of aromatic botany knows this. “Grafted” institutions will only take place if they function in a roughly similar social context, it took America for example, 200 years to get where they are today. Is Africa there yet? No. Africa lacks social contract.
Anyway, interestingly still, even the Western countries that were once colonial powers in Africa have had difficulty observing the rules of the so-called democracy at home, you saw it recently in America where talks of rigging and electoral fraud rocked the nation.
I cannot help but think of Africa and its dilapidated institutions, if democratic institutions and practices are only partially copied, and if the original was not all that great to begin with, then how will it stand for us?
I always remember my literature classes where my English literature teacher Mr. Hayiga told me to always read Chinua Achebe’s “ANTIHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH” In 1974 I did not know that this book would be my referral to the African democracy.
Can the center really hold in Africa? No. Africa needs to re-evaluate this type of Democracy in Equatorial Guinea and other parts of Africa that kill our African vision.
Africa needs to explore other alternatives to form its leadership around, otherwise, we shall forever encounter the embarrassments and the perils of this borrowed system.
The truth is as long as we operate systems that kill freedoms of choice and that prolong anarchy like in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon African COUPS will be many.
Let the truth sink to African youths that the colonial masters like the FRENCH who have overlooked the human rights abuses in exchange for CRUDE OIL will survive while we DIE.
