Olusegun Obasanjo, a retired army general and former military head of state is one of only two generals to have been elected Nigerian president. The other is Muhammadu Buhari, the immediate past president. The duo had two unbroken terms each and both left their country men and women wishing they saw their backs sooner. [Once again, I never will be able to shake off the digression bug, will I?]
Well, this piece is really about Obasanjo. His persona is almost close to that of the late Kingsley Ozumba (KO) Mbadiwe of the Timber and Caliber fame. The latter, in his political heydays, in the first republic and part of the second, enlivened the national political discourse with word craftsmanship. His capacity for neologisms would pull you out of your seat even when he said nothing particularly significant. Obasanjo also keeps the political space astir, but not by expanding the political lexicon as did Mbadiwe. His tools are his impetuosity, nose poking, abrasiveness and Pharisaicism. The aim, obviously, is to be in the thick of things and if there is nothing cooking, start one, why not.
One recent instance. The ex-president said that Western liberal democracy has failed Africa in that it ignores the continent’s “unique history, culture and traditions.” Speaking recently as the convener of a “Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy for Africa” gathering, Obasanjo said the Western style of democracy had faltered in Africa due to its neglect of the “majority opinion.” According to him, a government formed by only a fraction of people leads to exclusion of the majority. Describing Western liberal democracy as “government of few people over all the people,” Obasanjo said, it was far from inclusive. He also questioned the exclusion of the minority in a system that claims to be based on the rule of the majority. To him, therefore, Africans have no business operating a system of governance in which they have no hand in its “definition and design.” Instead, he recommends “Afro democracy”.
Obasanjo’s treatise on liberal democracy leaves me scratching my head as to where he is headed. For someone, who himself was a beneficiary of the very system that he is now rubbishing, to say it’s no longer workable, smacks of insincerity. Is it because the system stopped him in his track as he attempted to manipulate it to get term elongation? Also, he leaves the reader no clearer on his Afro democracy model except suggesting it should be African in concept and content but remain democracy. Obasanjo reminds me of a familiar Panadol advert: “If it is not Panadol, it can’t be like Panadol”.
Apart from his model lacking clarity as a whole, his putting down of liberal democracy is even less so. He appears to obfuscate about who is left out; is it the majority or minority? In one breath, he says government formed by a small fraction of the population is an imposition “over all the people.” Elsewhere, Obasanjo believes that it also excludes the minority when it claims to be the “rule of the majority.” Furthermore, how will Afro democracy work in a culture that discriminates against significant sections of the population – women and the youth, in particular? It appears the former president is in a rush to present a concept that hasn’t fully taking shape in his mind. In the end, neither he nor his audience is the better for it!
Even so, right or wrong, nobody can ever claim that democracy is a perfect form of government. As the late war time British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said (1947), “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government excerpt all those that have been tried from time to time.” Including Obasanjo’s implied advocacy of a hybrid politico-military power sharing arrangement. To him, this will be “Afro democracy.” And why not, because it will benefit him personally as he will find more relevance in it as militarized politician.
