Kukah And Failings Of Democracies In Africa

Penultimate Wednesday, Ghana’s capital, Accra, played big to a acme organized by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation connected the theme: ‘Why Democracies Die’. The essence of the theme, according to the organizers, is to spend policymakers the accidental “to interrogate the structural and systemic drivers of antiauthoritarian diminution crossed Africa, rising authoritarianism, organization fragility, and shrinking civic space, and exploring however antiauthoritarian systems are weakened and dismantled”.

The prime of Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah arsenic the impermanent talker was fitting, arsenic his footprints of intelligence inquisition successful bully governance person near a large feat of erudition crossed continental shores.

If the lawsuit was assumed to supply a level for Jonathan’s comeback discourse, the beingness of erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo, who supported the Bayelsa-born person successful 2011 but rallied forces against him successful 2015,  repudiated specified an assumption. Jonathan himself had, during a day solemnisation of his Chief of Staff, Mike Oghiadomhe, recalled however helium suffered betrayals astatine the hands of politicians whom helium described arsenic unreliable.

Shackled Democracy

John Keane’s ‘The Life And Death Of Democracy’ traces beyond Athens the root of what has present go the ballot government. The British historiographer notes that the top property of ideology is its adaptability successful tackling societal challenges. Describing ideology arsenic a time-bound system, Keane states: “Democracy is not the timeless fulfilment of our governmental destiny. It is not a mode of doing authorities that has ever been with us, oregon that volition beryllium our companion for the remainder of quality history.”

Just recently, erstwhile President Obasanjo declared his deficiency of assurance successful ideology to crook the tide for the communal bully of Africans. Footprints of ideology successful Africa person been uninspiring, arsenic crooked politicians person turned into tyrants and unleashed panic connected absorption elements. The top situation facing Africa’s ideology is however to negociate the curve that translates the committedness of the fashionable signifier of authorities toward the betterment of surviving conditions for Africans.

Bishop Kukah’s surmise connected democracy, backed by scholarly authorities, remains 1 of his champion that is yet to person rejoinders. The bishop’s submission resonates with African realities and portrays ideology arsenic a strategy wherever the almighty successful powerfulness emasculate the weaker citizens and crook them into victims of governmental and economical exploitation. The impermanent talker challenges President Barack Obama’s often-quoted pontification that Africa needs beardown institutions and not beardown men.

“Then, arsenic now, to me, President Obama’s irritating pontification simply exploited the arrogant and condescending mode that Americans and Europeans person often viewed Africa and its development, deliberately ignoring the sabotaging and complicit roles successful undermining our efforts. For them, Africans stay the achromatic man’s burden. They spot our underdevelopment arsenic a quality flaw, ignoring exploitative humanities processes that person led them to wherever they are and near america wherever we are. We are often made to consciousness inferior,” Kukah declared.

The Real Problem

As idiosyncratic who is not acrophobic to accidental it arsenic it is, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese near nary uncertainty successful identifying elected officials arsenic the top menace to ideology successful Africa. Instead of the ballot authorities being deployed to resoluteness challenges confronting Africans, elected leaders, according to Bishop Kukah, are substituting “blind, idiosyncratic ambition and greed for the good principles of work that ideology represents.” Once elected to power, immoderate politicians often go a information to their ain radical and the antiauthoritarian process itself by seeking to govern astatine each costs.

The repulsive corruption and unquenchable thirst for powerfulness to entree nationalist wealthiness are the main destroyers of democracy. The people, who clasp the eventual powerfulness done the ballot, person been quarantined from the antiauthoritarian process. The radical are lone progressive to springiness endorsement for flawed elections. Democracy successful Africa has not gone beyond a conflict outcry to inhabit power, empower cronies, and destruct opposition. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln is yet to find fulfillment connected the continent owed to contextual differences populated by radical of differing cultures and orientations. More worrisome, ethnicity and religion person go defining factors successful the prime of leadership, arsenic Africa’s ideology is brutally sustained to service the gods that power politics.

What Africa Lacks

Recalling the heroic deed of President Jonathan for conceding triumph to his challenger, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) successful 2015, Kukah commended h...