Western democracies no longer function at their full strength as they are now faced with internal instability because most of their citizens now question their style of politics or governance. This is why there is a wave among African countries seeking to reinvent themselves and divert from colonial legacies, the way voices in Nigeria like that of its former president Olusegun Obasanjo have been pushing.

A think-thank has been pondering and is looking for a new path through the theme “Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy for Africa”.

The quorum gathered in Abeokuta in Ogun State on Monday, 20 November where President Obasanjo gave the keynote address. It emphasised the need to tweak his country’s adopted style of leadership to a self-groomed one. Over there in the hall at the Green Resort Legacy, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library where the think-thank was waiting, the former president pointed to the flaws of Western democratic practice in its raw form.

“Here, we must interrogate the performance of democracy in the West [where] it originated from and with us, the inheritors of what we are left with by our colonial powers.

“We are here to stop being foolish and stupid. Can we look inward and outward to see what in our country, culture, tradition, practice, and living over the years that we can learn from, adopt, and adapt with practices everywhere for a changed system of government that will service our purpose better and deliver?

“We have to think outside the box and then act with our new thinking. You are invited here to examine clinically the practice of liberal democracy, identify its shortcomings for our society, and bring forth ideas and recommendations that can serve our purpose better, knowing human beings for what we are and going by our experiences and the experiences of others.”

Reacting to this in a conversation with Punch News was Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to Mr Bola Tinubu, the current President of Nigeria on Information and Strategy, who thought Mr Obasanjo wiser now for having the initiative to inspire a new approach to governance, although there was a thinking that such a move would have helped if it came earlier.

ALSO READ: Daunting tasks ahead as Supreme Court upholds Bola Tinubu’s mandate

In the 80s’ for instance when Obasanjo was a military Head of State, and supervised a reversal from a dictatorship to a civilian administration in an election.

“Obasanjo ought to know that he brought this thing into Nigeria,” says the aide who adds that it was the former president that made the country patronise Western democracy in 1979.

According to Mr Onanuga, “If [Obasanjo] believes in what he is saying now, he ought to be an advocate of the need to go back to the parliamentary system.

“We were practicing the parliamentary democracy the British left for us. Then, the military struck in 1966. And when we were going to return to democracy, instead of going back to what we were practicing before, parliamentary democracy, which was not expensive, it was this same Obasanjo who accepted the recommendation of the constitutional assembly at that time that recommended this American-style democracy.”

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.