AFRICAN COSMOLOGY THE BANE OF DEMOCRACY IN AFRICA

Abstract

Liberal democracy is much vaunted as the best political system with the capacity to satisfy man’s ultimate desire – the quest for recognition. This image of democracy is blurred by the outcome of the imposition of the system on Africa. Decades of efforts to implant democracy in Africa have yielded very minimal positive results. The system as practiced in Africa negates every established principle of democracy. Features palpable in ‘African’ democracy include god fatherism, ethnic and religious nepotism, hijack of electoral processes, political inequality and sit-tight-syndrome. Efforts to ascertain the why of failure of democracy in Africa abound with myriads of solutions proffered to no avail. This new effort to get to the root of crisis of democracy on the continent casts a critical look at African cosmology to see how its fundamental dispositions tally with the principles of democracy. This is propped on the fact that for an imported system to be absorbed there must be some modification of people’s basic beliefs and values. In the case of democracy, as in many other imported systems in Africa, the failure to adapt African cosmology to the principles of democracy facilitates the reverse process of democracy being modified to suit Africans. It is the stand of this write up that democracy does not suit Africa because many fundamental African beliefs and values such as communitarianism, social stratification, respect of elders etc which are anti-democracy are what Africans are fighting to preserve. There must be fundamental cosmology revolution if the much valued democracy is to take root in Africa.