By Mutabazi Sam Stewart
Developed countries in America and Europe have for some time now impressed it upon themselves to convince the world that democracy is the most important ingredient in any nation’s search for economic development. USA, the largest economy in the world since the end of the Second World War in 1945 strongly advocates for freedom and liberalism as the best options for countries to achieve sustainable macro economic performance. These western have found fertile ground to propagate the notion of democracy in Africa more than anywhere else. For the last forty years, no continent has vigorously sought to tap into the benefits of democracy and freedom enhancement in the world than Africa. To the contrary however, at the same time, there is no other continent on planet earth that is further from benefiting from the benefits that are supposedly to be realized when a nation takes the path of democracy. It seems, the more the West emphasizes democracy in Africa, the further Africa drifts away from development. Some scholars have in fact had the audacity to pronounce that democracy may possibly be holding Africa from attaining development. They argue that piecemeal /mediocre democracy that is prevailing in most parts of Africa today is contrarily confusing both the leaders and the masses on the continent.
Something of particular interest about this whole discussion has been the debate about the interests of western governments in Africa’s development. The important question that is often posed has been whether the developed world is genuinely interested in seeing Africa developed as they claim. Aren’t Africans naïve to keep in their laid back position awaiting the West to develop the African continent? Will this development that is championed by the West in Africa sustainable? Isn’t western democracy an import to Africa that is being used to hoodwink Africa and keep its people confused? Is democracy more important that development or does one lead to the other and if so which one comes first? Would we rather have freedom to do what we please and keep wallowing in abject poverty/ all these questions do not have ready answers yet unless they are rightly answered especially by African leaders, the continent may remain in its backward form in the next one thousand years.
It is strange that African leaders are still divided individually and collectively on the mission and vision of their countries and continent respectively. Although a few of them including our own Yoweri Museveni have come out to point out the major hindrances of development in Africa, they are yet to agree in a uniform fashion on the major bottleneck they need to address to overcome poverty and underdevelopment that make Africa a laughing stock of the world. African leaders and indeed scholars interested in African affairs are yet to agree for instance on one major challenge or problem, which if addressed would offset the continent take off towards development.
In my view I think that lack of democracy is not one of the major problems in Africa as some scholars would want us to believe. Neither is it because of continuous intervention and meddling by the West. As espoused by people like Andrew Mwenda of Independent Magazine. Africa’s problem to me remains lack of independent, well groomed and good intentioned statesmen and leaders who have unwavering love (patriotism) for their countries. A patriotic leader that dedicates more of his or her time to thinking how to better the lives of their people rather than how to retain power would be the greatest asset of the country they lead. Unfortunately the democracy that the west has imposed or rather exported to Africa is lacking identifying and nurturing such leaders let alone appreciating and supporting them. The confusion which Africa was in more than forty years at independence has not only worsened, the current situation threatens to become chronic and incurable hence keeping Africa in a perpetual condition of backwardness and underdevelopment.
Experience has already shown that democracy does not necessarily lead to economic development neither in the short or long term. Conclusive evidence also shows that the West has a different agenda for Africa in their quest to convince the continent that democracy is a good thing to embrace. Africa has wasted a long time because we don’t know our allies, their intentions. In fact we do not know our most pressing needs which makes it almost impossible to provide solutions to our problems.
Democracy may not be good for Africa and the promoters of the same may not necessarily be interested in our development. Unfortunately our leaders have not yet formed decisive opinion on how they can deal with this scenario and therefore Africa doesn’t know what it exactly wants and therein lies Africa’s problem. We cannot cure the disease unless we diagnose the sickness.
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