Reflections on Mrican Democracy: The Rugged Terrain of the Past, Current Challenges and Issues of Contextualization

Abstract

In Africa, the expectation was that decolonigation would be followed by democratization. However, this expectation was dashed particulary in the first three
decades following the independence of most African countries. Because of this, serious pro-democrag movements appeared in the continent starting from the late 1980s which resulted in meaningful improements. Nonetheless, the quest for genuine democrag has still been a real question throughout the continent. The purpose of this piece is to examine as to why the quest for democrag remained unfulflled to date, the trend of democrag since the 1990s, the gains and the shorfal, and the current challenges to democrag in the continent. It will also discuss whether accepting the Western Liberal democrag wholesale is rght or not and whether there is a need to make some sort of contextuaieation so that democrag can gain ground in the continent. The author argues that despite the challenges and obstacles to democrag in the Continent, Africa has to work hard to make democrag real since no other form of governance seems to be more
suitable to the continent. To this end, the countries of the continent should work aggressively and sincerely to entrench democrag by overcoming the challenges and removing the obstacles as much as possible. Nonetheless, the author bedeves that accepting the Western Liberal democrag without contextuaieation to the African readiy does not seem to be appropriate.