Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says democracy has failed in Africa, arguing that it is not delivering dividends to the continent
Obasanjo said this in Abuja on Monday during the 60th birthday colloquium of a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Emeka Ihedioha.
“If you are talking about democracy failing in Africa, democracy in Africa has failed. And why has it failed? Because in context and 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,” the former president told the gathering.
“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 a government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Obasanjo said, “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.”
According to Obasanjo, before the advent of colonial rule, Africa had its governance system which he argued served the people better.
He, however, faulted the current system in the continent which the former president says has empowered leaders to “grab everything illegally and corruptly” and ask the people to “go to court”.
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