For Enduring Democracy in Africa|Emeka Anyaoku
Today, democracy has become the practice or an aspiration in many countries across the world. To speak briefly about its origin, it was in the ancient Greek city state of Athens in 508 BC that the statesman, Cleisthenes, reformed the constitution of the city state by transferring power from the hitherto ruling oligarchic aristocracy to the citizens of the city. Although President George Washington of the United States of America who lived from 1732 to 1799 is commonly described as the father of modern democracy, it was Abraham Lincoln who lived from 1809 to 1865 who gave us the definition of modern democracy in its now universally accepted form as “the government of the people, by the people, and for the people”.
As a background to my remarks on the colloquium’s theme, Democracy in Africa, I would like to tell the story of my role in the promotion of democracy in Africa where there are now 21 African countries in the 56-member Commonwealth of nations. On my election as Commonwealth Secretary-General in 1989 in Kuala Lumpur by the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth, I pledged to them that my primary mission would be: to make the organization a potent force for promoting democracy and human rights; to in the words of the great Indian Prime Minister Jawarhalal Nehru bring a healing touch to conflicts between and within Commonwealth countries; and to strengthen technical cooperation for development among member countries.
At the beginning of my tenure as Secretary-General in 1990, there were 10 non-democratic member countries which were under either one-party or military rule. But when I left office in 2000, only 2 members were non-democratic, these were the absolute monarchy in Swaziland now known as Eswatini, and Pakistan where General Musharaff had taken over in a military coup d’etat in November 1999.
As Secretary-General, I took several initiatives to promote multi-party democracy in Africa. I succeeded in persuading after long conversations Presidents Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, Albert Rene in the Seychelles, and Arap Moi in Kenya to move from one-party ruled State to a multi-party democratic State. In the case of Kenya, I at his request sent the late Professor Ben Nwabueze to go and help Kenya to adapt their constitution from a one-party to a multi-party constitution. And I also had a long discussion with the Head of State, Jerry Rawlings, before Ghana held the elections that transited moved it from military rule to multi-party democracy in January 1993.
Perhaps, the most notable was my seminal role in South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy. Early in 1991, with the mandate of Commonwealth Heads of Government I went to discuss with the last white President of South Africa, Mr F W de Clerk, how the Commonwealth could help him in the conference he had proposed of his government and the anti-apartheid political parties after releasing Nelson Mandela from prison. Thereafter, I sent six Commonwealth statesmen and women to the conference when it opened at Kempton Park in Johannesburg on December 1, 1991.
And when the deliberations were threatened by violence following the massacre at Boipatong by the apartheid police of four ANC stalwarts, I went to South Africa to negotiate a peace accord which was signed by the President and leaders of all the political parties and thereafter sent six Commonwealth senior representatives whose presence helped to douse the violence. I organized a contingent of Commonwealth police men and women to go to South Africa and assist the South Africa police force which had been accustomed mainly to confronting anti-apartheid protesters and opponents in learning the techniques of community policing. A team of Commonwealth electoral experts also went to assist the South African Electoral Commission in organizing the elections.
Overall, I visited South Africa many times during the almost two-year duration of the conference at Kempton Park including on 17th November 1993 when it concluded at 3.30 am with agreement on the holding of elections and installation of a non-racial democratic government. I still remember vividly the quite emotional occasion of Nelson Mandela swearing the oath of the first democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa at which many in the audience including my wife shed some tears.
The South African Government doubly honoured me for my role. First by giving me the rare honour of addressing their joint Parliament in 1995, and secondly by conferring on me South Africa’s highest honour for foreigners, The Supreme Companion of O R Tambo (Gold). In 1997, I convened a meeting of the Heads of the then 19 African member-countries of the Commonwealth minus Nigeria whose membership had been suspended following General Abacha’s execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues despite personal pleas from President Nelson Mandela and myself, to discuss the state of democracy in their countries and the challenges they faced.
It emerged from the discussions that the first challenge faced by democracy in Africa which applies particularly to Nigeria is the management of diversity. African countries are largely the creation of European powers at their Berlin conference of 1884/85 where they arbitrarily lumped in individual countries ethnic nations that had existed separately for centuries.
The management of diversity is a common challenge to democracies across the world. The diverse countries that have succeeded in remaining united political entities have been those who operate true federal constitutions which are based at the national level on equity, justice and inclusiveness, while at the subnational level on adequately devolved powers for tackling the challenge of development and internal security. Examples of such countries are India and Canada.
On the other hand, the record shows that diverse countries which failed to manage their diversity through true federal constitutions have disintegrated sometimes after internal conflcts. Examples of such countries are Yugoslavia which disintegrated into seven independent countries, Czechoslovakia, and nearer home in Africa, Sudan.
In several African countries there are tensions among different religious and ethnic groups. In some countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic there are ongoing conflicts arising from such tensions. The horrific genocide that occurred in Rwanda in 1994 remains the worst example of the consequence of failure to successfully manage a country’s diversity.
The management of diversity remains the biggest challenge to our democracy in Nigeria. As I have said on many occasions, our current 1999 constitution is, in my strongly held view, ill-fitted to address it. The wisdom of Nigeria’s founding fathers in agreeing the essentials of our 1960/63 constitution which addressed the country’s diversity, is the only answer to the country’s current lack of credible sense of national unity, the wide-spread insecurity, and the under-performing socio-economic development.
Another challenge identified by the African leaders at the 1997 meeting on democracy was the operations of some foreign non-governmental organizations and agencies in their countries. Here in Nigeria there have been plausible allegations supported by foreign commentators such as the recent remarks by the US Congressman Scott Perry regarding the use of USAID funds to support the Boko Haram, and the leader of the South African mercenaries allegedly brought into the country by President Jonathan to help in the fight against Boko Haram, as well as pronouncements by African scholars including the widely acknowledged Professor P.L.O. Lumumba, of the destabilizing and nefarious activities of some non-government actors in the country.
With the recent military coup d’etats in Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, Africa remains vulnerable to returning to the 1960/70 period when the anti-apartheid author Ruth First in her book, The Barell of a Gun, told the story of a United States Secretary of State who said that he could not recall the number of times when he was woken up at night to be informed of yet another coup in an African country whose name sounded like a typographical error.
And finally, I would like to mention another challenge to our democracy here in Nigeria. It is the nature of our politics and the conduct of our politicians. Our political parties are not, as they should be, organized on ideological basis; they are organized essentially as instruments for capturing political power. And our politicians in their conduct are largely motivated not by a desire to render service to the people, but rather by self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment.
To conclude, I would like to stress that it is only through thriving democratic governance that Nigeria and the other African countries will rid the continent of internal conflicts and lack of socio-economic development which are the biggest impediment to Africa’s ability to change the Eurocentric narrative of Africa and the black race- a narrative that sustains racism and the looking down on Africans by other races. I believe that Nigeria, given its well-known attributes, has a special responsibility in changing this narrative.
Credit:This day