Multi-party participatory democracy is not working in Africa. We must rethink!

Has Africa had a time when they introspected comprehensively as to why African countries never rose to the occasion of social, cultural, and economic development - a success story that punctuates African development? It is becoming a tiring game to shift blame on former colonialists' interference for failing to run economies to improve nations, given their richness in human and natural resources.

Africa is frozen in time as a poor continent that is unable to lift itself from poverty, hunger, tribal conflicts, gross corruption, big‑man administrations, religious jingoism, tyranny, and politically unstable systems of governance.

Regression in Africa demands urgent attention and questions: why have countries in Africa never transformed beyond colonial social and economic political development, fulfilling the prophecy that Africans are incapable of managing modern economies, let alone transforming to meet basic national demands socially, economically, and politically?

A new trajectory is necessary for many reasons: the demographics in Africa have 75% youth growth. This demography has immediate demands on governments to give good education for all, clean water and sanitation, health institutions for all, sustainable job markets, national infrastructure developments to boost economic growth, food securities and sovereignties; above all, living in freedom and respect for human rights.

Not even first‑world South Africa, with 30 years of independence, has anything to offer its African youth.

When African countries became independent, it was an illusion to put independent countries on a democratic trajectory that never existed in Africa. However, since independence, democracy based on electoral constitutionalism has been tried, tested, and dismally failed in most countries except in two or three; Africa has 54 member states.

The real illusion has been the exposure and inability of African leadership that failed to deliver progress and development in their respective countries.

At independence, African leaders did not have experience to run governments. Administrative institutions inherited from colonialists did not train them to run governmental institutions. These key skills led to gross failure from the onset to meet the basic needs of the African population that was promised a better future.

Societies in Africa are unequal; the small percentage is excessively rich; the bigger percentage is abjectly and extremely poor. Promises of addressing youth problems are spoken and end at presidential and parliamentary election seasons and never go beyond.

Corruption continues to eat up revenues in government kitties, leaving little or nothing for the general populace. Neglect of youth accumulated for decades until it was normalized. Tensions between Gen Zs and the ruling governments have been surfacing the past years, leading to mass migration.

Migration started when professionals left the African continent for greener pastures in western countries, showing disdain for the running of their African governments.

Africa has been losing millions of professionals because of unstable governments that never delivered basic liveable means such as clean water and sanitation, good education, good working conditions, good food security and sovereignty, good health care, good electricity supply, and good road infrastructure. The exodus of qualified professionals exacerbates the living conditions of the populace in many African settings continentally.

The niche that stands to benefit from migration is qualified African migrants who offer professional services to receiving countries. However, it is not the case for many African youths, some of whom are even without basic education. The job opportunities for unqualified youth are slave‑like menial jobs, a hand‑to‑mouth existence. It does not deter the youth from occupying the very slave‑like jobs because even those possibilities are nonexistent in most African countries.

It is worth establishing fundamental causes and effects as to why African governments have dismally failed democratic institutions and how a change of political, social, and economic trajectory could be a game changer for Africa: African youth deserve better.

Africa is a continent marred by a series of political law and disorder, tribal conflicts, civil wars, failing states, terrorist insurgencies, piracy, and human and drug trafficking.

Almost all African countries have attained their independence from colonial rule; painfully, there is nothing to show tangibly. Some countries are collapsing; independence has never assisted them in any way, shape, or form.

Continents and countries that were colonized by the West are not only African countries; India, China, South America, and Pakistan were victims of colonialism. A comparison of African countries: almost all East Asian countries are doing relatively well. Why is Africa the only continent failing?

Because of instability in most African countries, internal and external migration of young Africans en route to Europe has risen exponentially. In 2023 in Lampedusa, the influx of African migrants reached an unprecedented proportion, with most EU politicians calling the influx an insurrection.

Curiously, African governments are unperturbed by the carnage taking place in the Sahara Desert and in the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands of African migrants perish in the Sahara Desert. Tragically, en route to Europe on foot, African migrants are abducted and trafficked. Many are often sold in slave markets in North African towns and forced into sexual slavery in brothels in cities across North Africa. Some are trafficked even further to the Middle East and Europe.

Multi‑party participatory democracy is not working in Africa.  
The implementation of democratic institutions in post‑colonial African settings has always been contagious. It had contradictions in comparison to the liberal democracy of the West.

African settings before colonialism were community‑based. It must be emphasized at this point that the colonizers never dismantled their grip of power from the liberated colonies.

Colonialists never wanted African countries to succeed as independent countries. They used fiscal incentives to manipulate electoral processes that assisted African politicians to remain subservient to former colonial masters.

Multiparty democracies are alien to African settings and hence have never worked since African states became independent.

Some of these newly independent African settings were dictatorial in character because they wanted power dominance. The introduction of one‑party states was the result of failed multi‑party systems of governance. Instead, they introduced oppressive systems meant to cow down opposing voices that challenged existing administrations; a nascent democracy could not possibly thrive under a “big man” one‑party state administration.

Multi‑party elections are a privilege of Western countries.

Africa today has a string of one‑party systems of government: authoritarian regimes, one‑party states, personalist rule, and dictatorships. Authoritarian regimes somehow hold elections solely to boost democratic credentials to the world, to impress former colonialists that independent African countries are on the right trajectory of democratic values of Western democracies.

Term limits have not worked in many African countries because the power of the incumbent can change the rules at will; it has happened in several countries on the continent. The arms of the security and police are entrenched in the office of the presidency, making it almost impossible for opposition parties to effect change through the ballot box.

Admittedly, electoral democracy is not working in Africa. Parliamentary democratic elections are a privilege of Western countries. External forces have great influence on African autocratic governments, making democracy laughable and unviable. Denial of human rights is packaged as Western concepts that want to interfere in how African governments must operate. Democratic decline cannot be a bone of contention because pure democratic governance has never existed in Africa.

Western countries continued to be donors of African governments and civil society organizations, thereby calling the shots. Aid is packaged with strict conditions that must be adhered to, even for recipients of aid: LGBTQIA+, human rights, and abortion rights. Again, donor dependency covertly and overtly suffocated the sovereignty of newly independent states and development.

Regression in African development demands urgent attention. It demands questions: why have countries in Africa never transformed beyond colonial social, economic, and political development, fulfilling the prophecy that Africans are incapable of managing modern economies, let alone transforming to meet basic national demands socially, economically, and politically?

A new trajectory is necessary for many reasons: the demographics in Africa have 75% youth growth. This demography has demands on governments to give good education for all, clean water and sanitation, health institutions for all, sustainable job markets, national infrastructure developments to boost economic growth, food security, and food sovereignty.

Above all, living in freedom and respect for human rights.

African governments have been deliberately given access to lines of credit from international monetary institutions, thereby hooking them to permanent dependency: a catch. Most of them defaulted on payments multiple times due to many reasons, including gross corruption at government levels. In most cases money did not serve intended purposes but was diverted to serve recurrent expenditure, but debt remained to be repaid.

Inability to make repayments gave Western institutions leverage to dictate stringent terms on government expenditures: ESAP, for example, is a prescription given to African countries that have defaulted: no free education, no free health, and several other social and economic policies promised by African political parties during election time.

Even African governments with good intentions were caught between a rock and a hard surface; they had to adhere to international bank conditions. Because of numerous failed plans of African governments across the continent, they drifted away from their electorates and instead maintained a grip on power, blaming interference of colonial powers for destabilizing their power base.

One classic example is the farm invasions of 1999/2000 that took place in Zimbabwe. They were complete in their execution; the irony is that the general populace are not beneficiaries of land reforms. Instead, it benefitted the entire ruling elite.

Hunger and famine became prevalent, but before the invasion, Zimbabwe never experienced food shortages. Instead, Zimbabwe was a breadbasket of Africa. Should we then continue to say, “It's better to misgovern ourselves than to be misgoverned!”

The rot in African democracies is not entirely put on African governments and leaders. Blame must be shared equally with colonial imperialists who wanted African governments to remain dependent on them. The use of colonial revenues, e.g., the French franc, limited Africans' progress.

West African countries were tied up in colonial repayment debts to France. Major mines and infrastructure development remained in the hands of colonial institutions. A classic example is Niger; the uranium mines continued to benefit France, giving the Nigerien government pittances of €0.80/kg of uranium.

Again, French colonies have been making colonial reparations; whatever infrastructure development France made must be paid back in cash and kind. These reparations had no time frame; French colonies have been paying colonial tax for over a century, hemorrhaging already meagre fiscal economies.

On the other hand, African governments' inability to transform Africa's wealth to benefit the general populace severely affected progress in many aspects of African development. The ability to use a nation's natural resources to transform development processes is the key to African development and NOT INTERNATIONAL AID from the World Bank, the IMF, or the Millennium Challenge Account. Africa aid is a curse: facets of underdevelopment to meet global challenges accumulated; education, a collarbone of development in Africa generally, was neglected; only 1% of privileged Africans benefited from the status quo.

Casualties of failed African governments are the youth. By 2063, Africa's demographics will be 3.20 billion, 70% of whom are youth under 35 years of age. About half a million youth will be potential migrants seeking employment in other continents, especially Europe. Are there contingencies that suggest that African governments are prepared for youth empowerment?

Only on paper, some of the African Union's Agenda 63 aspirations are:  
1) A prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development.  
2) An Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice, and the rule of law.  
3) A peaceful and secure Africa.  
4) Africa has a strong cultural identity with a common heritage, values, and ethics—an Africa whose development is people‑driven, relying on the potential offered by the African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children.

Nothing on the ground suggests that African nations are working hard to meet Agenda 63 aspirations. Neither will they meet the 2030 SDGs.