Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Monday, advocated what he termed as “Afro-democracy” rather than the Western Liberal Democracy type of governance in Africa.
The former president declared that the Western Liberal Democracy will never work as a system of government in Africa because it was “forced” on the continent.
Obasanjo stated this while delivering his keynote address at a high-level consultation on “Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy for Africa” in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
Obasanjo said that the time has come to be brutal with the truth and face the reality that Western democracy is not delivering on expectations and should therefore be tinkered with in such a way that it will be able to take care of our peculiarities as Africans.
The former president said that the snag with liberal democracy lies in the fact that it wasn’t homegrown and never took into account African history and multicultural complexities, among other peculiarities.
He further explained that the Western style of democracy failed in Africa because it did not take into account the views of the majority of the people.
Obasanjo said, “The weakness and failure of liberal democracy as it is practised stem from its history, content, context, and practice.
“Once you move from all the people to representatives of the people, you start to encounter troubles and problems. For those who define it as the rule of the majority, should the minority be ignored, neglected, and excluded?
“In short, we have a system of government in which we have no hands to define and design, and we continue with it even when we know that it is not working for us.
“Those who brought it to us are now questioning the rightness of their invention, its deliverability, and its relevance today without reform.
