IS DEMOCRACY OVER-RATED

Democratic norms and principles became the major yardstick for measuring good governance following the end of the cold war. As such, African states had to go through another phase of acclimatizing to the new trend. The first phase had occurred shortly after slave trade was abolished and lasted through the ages of independence. From mostly monarchical structure of governance we had to first do with short lived democracies before dwelling in the canals of autocratic leaders. No body in the world cared, all that mattered was for African leaders to belong to any of the power blocs and secure their votes at the U.N general assembly. However, at the end of the cold war, the need for African votes had dwindled seriously that we were told that to get any form of aid from any of the monetary organizations and States, we must first be democratic. Then began our voyage into democratic practice in the 21st century.

Democracy comes with the good of allowing for freedom and expression and to many person's this is the ultimate gift. Freedom will ensure that government will be open to criticism and will thus be answerable to its citizens.  At a closer look do we need democracy? do we even practice democracy and should we revert to other system(s) of government unique and in constant to our dynamics as a people?
Reading through Bamidele Ademola Olateju's piece on premium times where she asserted that we possess neither the institutions to make democracy work nor does our cultural dynamics support our quest for democracy. Nigeria is a culturally diverse state with people of varying backgrounds. Africans have always wanted governments to deliver the goodies of governance and nothing more. Ask an average Nigerian would you rather have a democracy where your freedom is assured but abuse and want rules aided by social injustice and mass marginalization reigns supreme or would you have a system of government that does not promise you the freedom of democracy but assures you of good roads, water, education, a good economy e.t.c. Your guess is as good as mine on this, little wonder so many have prayed for the military to come back.

That however is not what i am advocating for. we have tried to copy the western style democracy and we have failed woefully at doing so. In fact in my view what we have is not a democracy but rather a progression in Plato's defined  regimes of governance. We have moved from Aristocracy into Timocracy and presently we are shuttling between Oligarchy and Tyranny skipping past democracy. Plato defines oligarchy as a system of government which distinguishes between the rich and the poor, making out of the former its administrators and Tyranny a situation where no one has discipline and society exists in chaos. What we call democracy in Nigeria is only but a mixture of oligarchic and tyrannic features which we have termed "DEMOCRAZY" OR IF you are a fan of the late rapper Dagrin " CRAZY DEMO".  If democracy was said to guarantee freedom that gives room for good governance then why are we not experiencing good governance? this will only drive us back to Bamidele's opine about having the right institutions. Forget the system of government, what we require is institutional governance. The country is a mix of minority and majority ethnic nationalties  and democracy as practiced will only further divide us as it is currently doing. However if we see governance as an institution other than a system where we can accommodate our dynamics creating institutions to handle the uniqueness of each polity as a dynamic entity we may be on the path to getting it right.(even the whites were smart in doing this during the colonial days). Democracy should not be the alpha and omega of our political experimentation rather we should make it something from which we can build our own model from.

Pax
Ayodele Kelvin.

Works with TRIOS Human Development Foundation as a lecturer, researcher and holds M.A in peace, conflict and development stuies and a B.A in History and international Studies.

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