WHAT NO ONE COULD TELL YOU ABOUT AFRICAN DEMOCRACY

Joseph Nyumah Boakai, the Vice President of Liberia reveals…

You do me and my country great honor by extending an invitation to commune with you at this roundtable named after Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa, an all-time Icon of Africa’s liberation struggle.

Your invitation suggests that our goal is to collectively reflect on the political developments in Africa to know how far we have journeyed on this seemingly tortuous road, how much we have been able to achieve, how bigger the challenges are and perhaps to gauge the opportunities to turn this century into the ultimate African century for the millions of our compatriots and those unborn. I thank you all so much for according me the deference of performing this honor.

Comrade and Legend Nelson Mandela in whose name we converge, was a man of great vision. He inspired hope both at home and abroad and lived an exemplary life. He was an embodiment of a true African Hero. After a long and bitter struggle against apartheid, he sought to reconcile his country and demystify the trappings of political power and authority.

After his comparatively short term in office, Mandela did not transfer power under the compulsion of legal and constitutional prohibitions. He selflessly retired when the world and all of us could have succumbed to the temptation of popularity and fame and justify why we are indispensable to our nation.

Truly he was a towering revolutionary. He was prepared to die for the worthy cause he believed in. I have come to observe that revolutionaries choose to die for what they believe in, while, on the contrary, a rebel makes others die for what he believes in.

Nelson Mandela is probably one of the most respected and beloved leaders in the world in the last two decades and is testament to the fact that Africa is capable of producing a good and caring leader, who respects the Constitution and the attendant democratic ethos, who bows out when his time is over and passes the baton of powers to a successor, peacefully.

Are there lessons from the Mandela Model? Yes! (1) He peacefully transferred power without legal and other prohibitions.  (2) Due to his leadership, he remained a respected statesman in his country until his death thus retaining the dignity of a profound elder statesman.

The state and citizens also conferred the dignity and benefits of office that was deserved. He made all of us to appreciate what is possible after years of honest public service and what the nation should offer in return.

Today, some African leaders have peacefully transferred power while others have reluctantly done so after constitutional presidential term limits and continued to remain an inspiration to others. And yet, there are others who have, or at least attempted to, alter their nation’s constitutions at the risk of public discontent and stability.

In fact, we have witnessed armed crisis ensue with the loss of innocent lives because of such unruly, despicable and irrational behavior on the part of some of our leaders on the continent. We can however note that continentally, Africa has adopted various instruments and mechanisms to demonstrate our collective determination to improve the lives our people as embodied in Agenda 2063, NEPAD, African Peer Review Mechanism, etc.

It is in the face of all these developments that you have invited me to reflect on the well-thought out topic, “African Democracy, Constitutionalism and Leadership Emergence Pattern.”

I will start off by postulating that the concept of rule by the people is not new to Africa and, secondly, the rise of constitutionalism, presidential term limits, constitutional and institutional reforms to address the decentralization and the devolution of power as well as integrity in governance are all global contemporary issues under constant trial.

Let us take a look back at manifestations of AFRICAN DEMOCRACY

Historically, African democracy was characterized by three principles: consensus building, elder mediation, and conciliation. The tragic experience of slavery decimated and interrupted any prospect of accelerated growth in Africa and its institutions. Colonialism and its attendant vices grossly undermined any possible unity and integration.

The struggle for independence and the partitioning of Africa imposed new concepts of statehood. The formation of national leadership that grew out of these struggles compelled the growth of new leadership and the need to consolidate political and economic legitimacy in the face of clientelism.

The Cold War and its impact on newly independent nations limited the prospects of economic and political sovereignty. As African nations evolved after the long period of colonialism and a partitioning process, new forms of leadership emerged and with that the need to re-engineer the state became a necessity.

With independence came the need for a constitutional order.  Some historians have argued that democratic expectations in Africa revolved around three major areas--the distribution of wealth, power, and worth or dignity. Yet these issues are constantly threatened by questions of national identity, legitimacy, participation, integration, and now integrity in governance.

These expectations center on the extent to which individual participation is guaranteed through legally prescribed frameworks and how these processes are respected by all--rich, poor, weak, and strong alike.

One key feature of democracy is the political participation of citizens in voting for those who represent their interests and how they contribute to decision-making, especially in voting. Democracy is about political meaning, not some battle of atomized individuals with separate self-serving agendas to net selfish ends.

Elections can make the difference only if they come to enforce the political sovereignty of the people against new forms of dictatorship, some political commentators have argued.

Africa and its leaders must listen to the aspirations, needs, lesson s from its tragic history, the legacy of pains, sufferings, and injustices. Leaders must appreciate the imperative of building institutions that offer justice and protect the rights of its citizens, while creating the ground or the people to access the exigencies of life.

We must draw inspiration from our struggle for independence and self-rule, rejecting the reliance on pity and sliding into dependence. We will have to take advantage of the explosion of youthful talents and innovations to harness our natural resources for the good of our people.  If we can do this, and do it deliberately, our global influence will be enhanced and economic independence achieved.

It has been more than two decades since the wave of multi partyism engulfed our Continent. Authoritarianism and one party rule lost grounds to the dictates of local and international pressure. There was great anxiety for greater political freedoms and strong institutions that would lead to more government accountability and, resultantly, to more effective national development.  Have we succeeded?

Democracy is meant to be the rule of the people. A truly democratic country puts the needs of the people above the egos of politicians; although in practice, this is rarely the case. Some have equated the frequency of elections with democratic consolidation. Experience however shakes the foundation of such conclusion.

In some instances, elections have been a source of instability, especially where basic freedoms and rights are infringed upon. For an election to be what it is meant to be, processes leading through it must include accountability, freedom of association, assembly, opinion and expression, equality, and responsiveness, freedom of the press and of movement.

The current model of political organization, however, has only succeeded in greater measure in skewing individual successes against collective projects.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:

The events unfolding on the Continent today mark the historic referendum on how well we have performed in our experiment with self-government, more than fifty years later.

African states embraced democracy and constitutionalism as a popular prescription to asserting equality and respect for the dignity of all.  This experience continues in the face of varying arguments and theories on how the democratic experiment can be perfected.

In Liberia, we recently parted ways with one-party state, following 25 years of conflict (1980–2003), which was sustained by a quest to establish a constitutional democracy that can guarantee everyone equal participation in the economic, social and political activities of our country.

In 1984, we drew up the Constitution of the Second Republic and established in it a commitment to never return to one-party state. Our Constitution of the Second Republic, adopted by referendum in 1986, declared Liberia as a multi-party democracy! Period!

Since the close of our period of war and civil strife, and instability, we have had two successive free and fair elections. By October of 2017, Liberians will return to the polls to duplicate what our hosts, the brotherly and sisterly people of Nigeria, successfully accomplished without causing any of the former leaders to be forced to flee into exile.

Other countries have done it. We can say the same for the great people of the Federal Republic of Tanzania, thanks to President Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, and many other successful democracies across the continent.

Democracy is on the rise in Africa! But in order to seize the moment and make it work for growth and development, African governments have to be accountable to their people. Governments are created to deliver public goods and services to their people. And the body of rights in our constitutions makes this abundantly clear.

Leaders must focus less on protecting their powers and work more to create vibrant domestic private sectors that will become growth poles and job creators. The greatest peril to African democracy has been a neglect of growing the entrepreneurial potentials of our citizens and presenting government as the only option for employment.

But governments can only employ so much and no more. Governments that ignore this basic principle often mount the course of self-destruction.

Think about it for a moment--Africa trading with itself. Picture Africa developing its national and regional infrastructure with African labor and not foreign labor so as to spread wealth, scale up capacities and celebrate the dignity of everyone.

Imagine Africa modernizing and professionalizing border crossings to achieve the AU goals of a borderless and single currency Africa and promoting free movement of peoples, goods, and services. This is not new thinking! SADR and the EAEC are already engaged in connecting their regions, but we must all work to duplicate these successes all across Africa.

African democracy is challenged by the resistance of its leaders to respect the dignity of their fellow citizens to get jobs and be able to leap frog across the poverty line.  That is, there is a paradox inherent in the very democratization process. The reality of democracy in Africa may look bleak. Democracy is nonetheless becoming the rule of the game. Nigerians poured into the streets to protest their Government's slicing of social funds from oil revenues.

Meanwhile, after going through a hysterical moment of ethnic violence, Kenyans agreed to a power sharing arrangement between their two contending leaders. The Senegalese people refused to have their democracy stolen by anti-constitutional fraud. Instead its civil society mobilized to organize parallel monitoring and computing centers of electoral votes.

For Africans, democratic changes implied a break up with and liberation from military dictatorships, freedom from all kinds of oppression, and the rule by righteous principles that will guarantee a lasting peace and a just distribution of resources.

If you ask a good number Africans what they want most from their leaders, they will tell you:

1.           Enough food to eat

2.           Clean water to drink

3.           A roof over their heads

4.           Accessible and affordable medical care

5.           Education for their children

Let’s now take a look at the evolution of CONSTITUTIONALISM in Africa.

The birth of constitutionalism in Africa gained momentum almost 25 years ago. Africans have argued that with the disappearance of colonialism and the Cold War, the nation state must be redefined within the borders of constitutional and legally prescribed institutions.

There should be an effort to re-order relations, guarantee and protect collective and individual freedoms and offer real independence.

South Africa, Namibia, and Ghana are commonly cited as positive examples for their constitution making processes, while in some countries such as Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya, the failure of constitutional reform has been linked to political violence and instability.

Except Ethiopia and my native Liberia, all of Africa’s democracies and constitutions evolved out of our rejection of European colonialism and our uncompromising struggle for self-determination and the restoration of national sovereignty.

Now, although all governments have constitutions, not all governments uphold and adhere to them. Some governments do manipulate the constitution to legitimize their authoritarian rule, thereby veering into unconstitutional territory.

The concept of constitutionalism demands governments to act within the confines of established laws, written or not. The Constitution provides individual and shared authority of the different branches of government. It provides limitations on each branch of the government, supporting external checks on all in order to safeguard the liberty of all.

Constitutions are living documents and so they require constant monitoring and on-going evaluation to make them PERFECT instruments. Therefore, each new generation must do its part and aspire to create a perfect society of law and order.

The French Philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu, argued that man--though a reasoning animal--is at times led by his desire onto immoderate acts. And experience shows that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and carry its authority as far as it will go.  Therefore, a government without constitutional restraint makes democracy vulnerable to failure and collapse.

Democracy might not be the core of constitutionalism, but a governing system can be called constitutional without being democratic.

Let not take you briefly through a review of the emergence of new leadership pattern on our Continent.

Africa has made noticeable progress in consolidating its democratic credentials.  Evidently, we have collectively rejected the subversion of governments by the military.

On the heels of the diminishing involvement of the military in the political arena, new experiences have emerged:

Ø  leaders who perpetuate themselves by altering or interfering with the will of the people through elections;

Ø  those who are embarking on constitutional reforms aimed at perpetuating themselves in power against popular consent and yet;

Ø  those who are democratically elected and are honestly attempting to promote accountability and integrity in governance.

Leaders who attempt to make themselves permanent undermine democracy. Those who attempt to change presidential term limits offend our progress towards the consolidation of democracy by usurping the people’s rights usually to sustain their indulgence in corruption to enrich and further entrench themselves.

Corruption and impunity at the highest level are a sign that the balance of power still sits firmly with those in office, and not—as it should be-- those who vote them in.

According to the African Union, more than $148bn (£93bn) is lost to corruption in Africa every year. Much of this is perpetrated by and through public officials serving in democratically elected governments.

My Esteemed Audience,

To put my reflection with you in context, I wish to focus on the contemporary trend in Africa and challenge all of us to develop and design a consistent approach to how governance and the rule of law can transform our continent.

In that light, I offer these reflections from my assessment of new arguments in our pursuit of democratic entitlements.

Some do not see Western democracy as a prescription fit for Africa. American Historian William Blum, in a recent book, describes democracy as a Western imposition on Africa--"America's deadliest export" and foreign policy tool.

Others however offer formula by which democracy can be finessed to Africa’s acceptance. Chris Zumani Zimba suggests incorporating traditional power structures into formal government. He argues:

“Politicians recognize the influence of traditional leaders

on how communities vote during elections and try to

manipulate this. A better system would be some kind of

bicameral government, even giving traditional leaders

legislative powers."

As with any healthy democracy, there is a range of opinions and robust debate. The consensus however seems to be that, whilst democracy is not delivering as well as it could be for Africa, it remains the most viable form of government for the continent. In short, “Democracy” can be nursed to make leaders do what their people want them to do.

As far back as nearly four decades ago, in 1979, African leaders, at the meeting of the then Organization of African Unity (OAU)--now the African Union (AU)--in Monrovia, Liberia, developed a framework for what later became known as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. This almost instantly became a progressive reference for international discourse.

The Charter distinguished its premise on the tenets of solidarity, collective vs. individual rights elevating collective rights thus recognizing Africa’s unique communal character and challenging us to focus on development as a right to be pursued. This was Africa’s own response to the rights debate.

We can also be proud that ECOWAS has acknowledged the role of community citizens and incorporated the pursuit of individual redress for violation of human rights by granting jurisdiction to the ECOWAS Court. In both instances, we have advanced our democratic credentials and imposed our unique character on the world. We may take this to be a form of regional constitutionalism.

It should be noted that, as to the question of constitutional presidential term limits and other fast growing developments, there has been resistance by some African leaders. This resistance is a product of the historic personalization of politics and the supremacy of individual over institutions. Our national political discourse and democratic entitlements have been undermined by the personalization of ideas, and the absence of institutions.

In spite of several constitutional reforms aimed at discouraging the perpetuation of power, several leaders have resisted or, in some cases, brazenly attempted to change the constitution to prolong their stay in power. This we must seek to discourage in much firmer terms by putting into place continental framework. By doing this, we will continue to strengthen African democracy and constitutionalism.

I should thus add my voice to the emerging thought on the formulation of a continental protocol that defines a clear stand against the manipulation of presidential terms of office. This we must do promptly so as to save the continent from the usual attendant divisiveness and reversal of democratic gains that it visits upon our nations.

My Dear Compatriots,

We must institutionalize the peaceful transfer of power in Africa, develop and build institutions and discourage the tradition of tribal, ethnic and religious cleavages that create disharmony in the nation state and stifle popular participation.

We must respond to the needs of our people by encouraging systems that distribute justice, create and re-distribute wealth as well as provide basic services such as education, health, agriculture. This must go along with the proper management of our endowed natural resources in an accountable and transparent manner.

I am very much aware of the challenges we have. I have seen war and the destruction it brings. I have seen the subversion of people’s power and the accompanying despondency and divisiveness it visits upon our societies.  But yes also, I have seen the resolve in our people to build a new--to build bridges, reconstruct lives, and build new nations. Africa has the ability. Africa has the capacity and, indeed, Africa has the skills to build a new and better Africa.

In this reflection, I have offered some new ideas about how we can consolidate and advance democracy in Africa, strengthen constitutionalism and celebrate a new leadership pattern for Africa. It is my hope that this will offer meaning to our discussions and help re-define our African democracy experiment.

In conclusion, my dear friends and compatriots, I need not remind you that democracy will require an educated and healthy population with limited temptations of manipulations. We must invest in this!

I strongly believe that together we can make Africa great by simply Thinking, Loving and Building Africa!

To you, Dr. Ifedi Okwenna, and your brilliant team of organizers, I say immense thanks for such a resounding platform that brings together such fine collection of interlocutors to discuss the political development and future of our beloved Africa.

Thank you for your wonderful hospitality and for hosting this event.