COLUMN: Democracy Not Africa’s Answer
By Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman
There is a question Africa has avoided for too long because it is politically uncomfortable and historically sensitive: is democracy, as it is presently practised across much of the continent, actually capable of delivering the Africa that Africans need? The question is not an argument for dictatorship. No! It is not a defence of military coups, one-party states or governments that silence citizens. It is not even an argument that Africans do not deserve the right to choose their leaders. They do.
But after decades of elections, constitutions, political parties and changes of government, it is legitimate to ask whether the political model Africa inherited and subsequently reproduced has become more important to African leaders than the outcomes it is supposed to produce.
The fact remains, Africa’s problem is no longer simply who wins elections. It is what happens after the election. Across the continent, citizens are confronting unemployment, insecurity, failing public services, inflation, weak currencies, poor electricity supply, inadequate healthcare, infrastructure deficits, declining purchasing power and the persistent inability of governments to transform enormous natural wealth into broad prosperity. Meanwhile, political competition is often reduced to the struggle for control of the state and its resources.
The evidence of growing frustration is difficult to dismiss. In its latest survey covering 38 African countries in 2024 and 2025, Afrobarometer found that only 47 per cent of respondents considered their country a democracy and only 38 per cent were satisfied with the way democracy was working. Yet 64 per cent still preferred democracy and majorities rejected one-person rule, one-party rule and military rule. Only 36 per cent qualified as what Afrobarometer called “committed democrats”, meaning respondents who both preferred democracy and rejected all three authoritarian alternatives. The report suggests that Africans are not necessarily tired of democracy. They are increasingly tired of the failure of governments that call themselves democratic.
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For years, African political elites have treated elections as the utmost evidence of democratic success. Four or five years pass, citizens vote, results are announced, winners celebrate and losers complain. Then government continues. But democracy cannot be reduced to the mechanics of voting. A ballot paper does not put food on a table. It does not generate electricity. It does not secure a village from armed groups. It does not build a functioning railway, hospital or university. It does not process minerals into finished products or turn unemployed young people into productive workers.
The World Bank’s 2025 Country Policy and Institutional Assessment found that governance remains one of the areas in which Sub-Saharan Africa has improved more slowly than other regions. The Bank reported that poor government effectiveness continues to undermine infrastructure and public-service delivery, while deficiencies in transparency, accountability, budget execution and internal controls remain serious obstacles to development.
Consider Nigeria. The country has crude oil, natural gas, vast agricultural land, a huge population, a large consumer market and substantial human capital. Yet electricity remains unreliable, manufacturing struggles with high operating costs, public infrastructure is inadequate and millions of Nigerians remain trapped in poverty. Governments change, slogans change and development plans change, but the structural problems survive the politicians who supposedly came to solve them.
The Democratic Republic of Congo presents an even more painful contradiction. It possesses some of the world’s most important deposits of cobalt, copper and other minerals essential to the modern economy. Yet enormous mineral wealth has coexisted with poverty, weak infrastructure and instability.
Africa therefore does not merely have a resource problem. It has a state-capacity problem. The continent has resources. What it repeatedly lacks is the institutional machinery to convert resources into sustained prosperity. This should force Africans to reconsider what they mean by democracy. Perhaps the more useful political question is not whether a government was elected, but whether the institutions of that government are strong enough to protect public resources from political capture, whether public officials can be held accountable, whether policies survive changes of administration and whether citizens have meaningful influence between elections.
Disappointingly, the answer will not be found in military government. Africa has travelled that road before. The coups that swept across Africa after independence produced governments that often promised discipline, national renewal and an end to corruption. In many cases, they eventually reproduced the same failures they had condemned. Military rule is not a development strategy. Soldiers can seize power, but they cannot manufacture competent institutions merely by wearing uniforms.
The answer may instead lie in redesigning democratic government itself. Africa should examine a form of government that combines democracy with strong federalism, substantial decentralisation, consensus-building, professional public administration and direct participation by citizens. Switzerland provides perhaps the clearest developed-country example of what such an arrangement can look like.
Since becoming a federal state in 1848, Switzerland has organised political authority across the Confederation, 26 cantons and more than 2,000 communes. The principle is straightforward: government should remain as close to the people as possible, with powers transferred upward only where necessary. Its seven-member Federal Council operates collectively, with decisions based on consensus rather than the political dominance of one president. Swiss citizens also vote directly on particular issues through referendums and popular initiatives. Switzerland is not Africa, and no serious person should suggest copying its constitution wholesale. But the underlying principle deserves attention.
Why should one politician in a nation’s capital control an extraordinary concentration of resources and appointments in a country as geographically and culturally diverse as Nigeria? Why should communities wait for federal intervention to solve problems that can be managed locally? Why should political parties compete primarily for the presidency when development takes place in towns, villages, municipalities and regions?
Decentralisation is ultimate here. It will make government visible. It also makes failure harder to hide. A local government that controls its resources and responsibilities can be judged directly by the people living under it. A state or province can be compared with another. Competition can become a competition over public-service delivery rather than merely over political patronage.
Although decentralisation alone is not enough. Africa also needs a professional state. And this is where Singapore offers another useful lesson. Its political circumstances are very different from those of African countries though.
When Lee Kuan Yew became Singapore’s first Prime Minister in 1959, the country faced severe unemployment, overcrowding and economic uncertainty. Nearly 70 per cent of the population lived in slums, according to Singapore’s historical records, and unemployment was in double digits. After Singapore became independent on August 9, 1965, its leaders faced the additional problem of having virtually no natural resources and no large domestic market. They responded with long-term economic planning, industrialisation, infrastructure development, education and an aggressive drive to attract international investment.
The Economic Development Board, established in 1961, became a central instrument of industrialisation. Singapore developed Jurong as an industrial estate, invested heavily in infrastructure and deliberately positioned itself as an export-oriented economy. By 1970, the country had moved close to full employment.
Even at that, Singapore’s story must not be romanticised. Its political model, civil liberties record and historical circumstances are different from those of African states. But one lesson is difficult to dispute: development requires a state capable of implementing decisions consistently over decades. That is precisely what many African political systems struggle to achieve.
A new administration frequently arrives with a new programme, a new slogan and a new set of political appointees. Long-term projects are abandoned, renamed or redesigned. Institutions become vulnerable to political interference. Public servants learn that political loyalty may matter more than professional competence.
Africa cannot build a century-long future on four-year political calculations. What the continent needs is a democratic system that protects the people’s right to choose but prevents every election from becoming a complete reset of the state.
Imagine an African federation in which elected governments could change, but national development strategies could not be casually abandoned. Imagine independent institutions managing public finances, elections, justice and natural resources without becoming instruments of whoever occupies the executive office. Imagine regions controlling significant resources while remaining constitutionally bound to national standards on education, healthcare, security and human rights. That would still be democracy. But it would be a more institutional democracy. It would also address one of Africa’s most destructive political habits: the obsession with the individual leader.
Too much of African politics revolves around presidents. Their photographs dominate government buildings. Their names appear on projects funded with public money. Their approval is sought for matters that should be handled by institutions. Political succession becomes a national crisis because the system is built around personalities rather than rules.
The continent’s 54 states contain hundreds of ethnic groups, languages, religions, political traditions and historical experiences. A rigid political template imposed uniformly across all of them is unlikely to produce identical outcomes. Nigeria is not Botswana. Ghana is not Ethiopia. Kenya is not Morocco. Senegal is not South Africa. Africa therefore needs a political philosophy rather than a single imported constitutional costume.
Africa’s answer may lie in a democratic order redesigned around its own realities: federal where appropriate, decentralised where practical, participatory where necessary, professional in administration, disciplined in public finance and relentless about long-term development.
The objective should not be to discover a government that looks African. It should be to build governments that work for Africans.
Alabidun is a media practitioner and can be reached via alabidungoldenson@gmail.com
