How long will it take us Africans to realize and confess, in shame and remorse, that perhaps we Africans are not just wired by our creator to practice democracy, especially its demand for periodic elections? And after this confess, to call upon our eggheads in various fields of human endeavour to go ahead and fashion for us a less costly and less deadly form of government.
If we dare to make this confession I know that many will mock us and say that what we have actually done is to confirm to our critics and mockers that we are actually sub-human and inferior to other races as they have said all along. But me, a practical realist, what will such confirmation do to harm us when, in actual fact, it will do nothing negative but ultimately help to save our dear lives? For, as I see it, if we persist in practicing this democracy it is what will eventually help to wipe us away from the surface of the earth.
I feel very ashamed and angry that in many countries of Africa where ‘democracy’ is practiced, we now have a phase called post election violence. It has now become a standard reality that when elections, especially the presidential ones, are held that post election violence will surely follow the event. It has happened on and on so much that most reasonable people expect it or plan that it will surely happen. That the conduct of our elections will fall wide off the mark that many will have no option but recourse to violence to settle their disaffection with the process or conduct. Are we as a people bound to violence or we are compelled to recourse to it in light of our pessimism that the right thing will not be done?
Sometime last year, Mozambique held her presidential election in which the ruling party candidate was declared the winner. Supporters of the opposition party candidate said no: they perceive that it was the opposition candidate who won. The highest court in the land met a few weeks ago and ruled in favour of the ruling party candidate. And hell broke loose in the country. Many protesters poured onto the streets in protest barricading access to several parts of the city of Maputo, their country’s capital. Law enforcement agents rose up to contend with the rebellion. Several protesters died and some of the country’s infrastructure was damaged.
That was not all. The level of the anger of the protesters was so much that it led many fearful citizens to run for their dear lives; they fled and poured into neigbhouring countries of Malawi and Angola. Thus, the election trouble in Mozambique did not only affect the economy of that country alone; it has gone to plunge innocent neighbours into some economic and humanitarian crisis.
Why must Africa continue to pay such a high price for a mode of government that has not in any way benefitted our lives in any way? Apart from the huge amounts of money spent in electioneering campaigns and intrigues which should rightly be utilized in providing vitally needed infrastructure for our development, the post election violence that has become a part of the elections comes against to do us great harm.
As I am writing this, I am thinking and shading tears for Mozambique. This is a country that went through so much hardship during its colonial rule and its post independent period of self rule. Why cannot this country be spared from violence or anything that is certain to bring strife and agony to its innocent citizens?
Where are our political scientists? Can none of them come up with an idea of a government that can be instituted not through democracy and elections? Can we not think of a gentleman’s agreement achieved through consensus that will produce people to govern us through tribal turn-by turn? Must leaders always come through democracy and its costly elections that claim so many lives in Africa? I am angry and confused. Can somebody out there not help me to think more rationally if my venting above sounds so irrational and hopeless?
The trouble with African democracy is that there are always some owners of the land who decide who must be president of the country one time or another. Such people hold a veto power over the decision of the rest of the people. That is why our elections are always disputed, leading to violence and the destruction of property. When will we learn to approach these veto power wielders and reach a gentleman’s agreement with them for our own peace and well being?
