Learning Democracy From Liberia And Senegal

By Kenneth Okonkwo

There’s no doubt that democracy is the best system of government because apart from assuring the peaceful transfer of power from one leader to the other, it also guarantees the participation of the people in their government. Not just the participation of the people, but indeed the leadership of the people, because democracy is the rule of the people. Where true democracy is practiced, like United States of America, Britain, Israel, South Africa, Kenya etc, the government is afraid of the people, but where dictatorship, autocracy or fake democracy is practised, like in North Korea, Russia, China, and unfortunately, Nigeria, the people are afraid of the government.

Democracy is built on the pillar of free, fair, credible, verifiable, and periodic elections; rule of law; independent and impartial electoral body, and the courts; protection of the fundamental human rights of the citizens; free press, and media, and the eternal vigilance of the people. Democracy based on free and fair elections lead to development of a country because the leaders are aware that their only route to power is the security and welfare of the people which will encourage the people to vote for them. Fraudulent elections, on the other hand, lead to underdevelopment of a country because they trump up corrupt and incompetent leadership who do not owe their coming to power through the will of the people and as such not committed to their security and welfare. They rather concentrate on plundering the state’s resources to accumulate enough wealth to bribe and compromise their godfathers, officers of their own party, electoral officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), courts, security agencies etc, through whom their power comes, but not the people.

In Africa, the democracy practised by most member states is at best a “jankara” (anything goes) brand of democracy. Would anyone believe that Togo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Sierra Loene, Cameroon, Rwanda, etc are laying claim to be practising democracy? In Togo, Gnassingbe family has been governing from independence for more than 57 years and immediately after the death of Eyadema, the son, Faure, was installed by the army to take over and has been governing till date, being sustained by fake elections. Elections here is simply a coronation exercise to vote back the leader. Idris Derby of Chad died and immediately they imposed his military General son on the country despite their pretence at democracy. They have governed for more than 40 years together. In Cameroon, Paul Biya has “democratically” governed for more than 40 years now with no end in sight. He is suffering from dementia and the only achievement he records now is farthing out loud whenever he goes to any public function. Some members of that country’s cabal are sustaining him there for their own pockets. Same with Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who fought as a rebel to the Uganda presidential palace and morphed into a “democratically” elected government that organises elections in which he is undefeatable. Same with Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Mbasogo, who has been there for 45 years and he is grooming his son to take over. Sierra Leone just finished election in which the incumbent was declared winner while the election collation was still on. Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast fought all his life to be President of Ivory Coast. The country was nearly destroyed through wars because of his unquenchable appetite to rule. When he eventually got power by force, and completed his second tenure in office, he shamelessly altered the Constitution to run for a third term and forth. The man he purported to be supporting to succeed him died mysteriously and he found no other human being, apart from himself, capable of governing Ivory Coast. It’s a shame.

Recently, youths in some of the countries with these kinds of shenanigans, got fed up and overthrew some of the tyrants and their jankara democracy. This happened in Niger Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, etc. The reasons for the overthrow were anchored on fraudulent elections, sit tight syndrome (no elections at all) and corruption. Where they organise elections, they rig it to their own favour, thereby frustrating the youths from peacefully changing them. As the saying goes, those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. The overthrown leaders are either in jail or in exile.

However, there are very shinning examples from Liberia (city of liberation), and Senegal. These countries have been having stable democracy for more than a decade. The secrets of their success were predicated on honest leadership, independence and impartiality of the electoral bodies and the courts, but above all, the eternal vigilance of the people. In Liberia, George Weah, a former international footballer, who became President, through the will of the Liberian people, made no pretence about his intention to entrench democracy in Liberia.

It is pleasing to note that when George Weah was faced with the problem of unpopularity during his own constitutionally mandated re-election bid, that he delivered free, fair, credible, verifiable, elections. He had every opportunity to rig the election because the people were almost evenly divided on the matter of his election. In the first round, no clear winner emerged, but he led in the first round. He was left with only one contestant for the second round in which he narrowly lost. He immediately conceded defeat and no iota of blood was shared in such keenly contested election in which an incumbent was defeated. If a leader has character and is honest, democracy is secured. What happened in Liberia, exposed the fact that no election can be successfully rigged without the complicity of the ruling party and the ruler himself because of the awesome powers he possessed, especially, the power of the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. In Africa, any leader that finds himself losing, simply deploys the armed forces to burn all the ballot boxes and kill all his opponents and compel or compromise the electoral body, through bribery, to declare him the winner. These didn’t happen in Liberia, and we must commend President George Weah for displaying character of honesty in this election. Today, Liberia is peaceful and will continue to advance economically and socially because of the perception of stability that it has acquired in the eyes of the international community, and Africa must learn from this.

Senegal wasn’t as lucky as Liberia, because they didn’t have a George Weah on the throne. They had a Macky Sall as President, who is an apology to what an honest leader should be. First, he manifested as an angel of democracy who is not power drunk. The highly enlightened Senegalese people played into his dubious hands and voted for him against a long serving incumbent and he ascended power on a high note. After his tenure, he broke his promise and wanted power elongation. Sall, the political tortoise, decided to alter the Constitution to remove term limits. In order to achieve this, he visited the political opponents with the harshest maltreatment and sent most of them to jail. He single handedly shifted the date of the election for no justifiable reason, in order to illegally elongate his tenure.

The Senegalese people rose up to the occasion and resisted him. They insisted that the candidates of their choice must be allowed to contest for the election, and that the date for the election was sacrosanct. The courts rose up. They insisted that Sall has no power to shift the date of the election. The Senegalese President was cornered by the will of the people and the independence and impartiality of the courts. As God Himself will admonish us, “resist the devil and he will flee from you”. The people of Senegal resisted Macky Sall and he fled from the seat. It’s regrettable that blood of innocent Senegalese people was needlessly shed to resist the inordinate ambition of Sall, and Macky must be held responsible for it. MKO Abiola will tell you that there cannot be the making of omelette, without breaking of eggs. Some Senegalese people paid the supreme price for the sustenance of their democracy and they must be commended. Eventually, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, came from the prison, 10 days to the election, and won the Senegal presidential election, defeating the candidate and party of the incumbent Macky Sall. He had never held any political office previously, signifying a vote of no confidence on the entire Senegalese political class. Democracy won on the vigilance of the people and the courts.

Nigeria must borrow a leaf from Liberia and Senegal. From Liberia, our leaders must learn to organise free and fair elections and respect the will of the people as expressed in the ballot. This will render unnecessary, the courts choosing our leaders for us instead of the people. INEC must be truly independent and must be allowed to work. Nigeria must learn from Senegal. In the event of the leaders not performing their tasks, the courts and the people must rise to the occasion to resist them. Our courts have performed abysmally low in the performance of their duties. Where a court ruled that INEC has a discretion to do what the law compels it to do is a situation where the courts are encouraging discretion over the rule of law which Sir Coke described as uncertain and crooked cord of discretion. Our electoral laws are now uncertain and crooked because of this decision which led to the incidence of prefilled fake results in the off-cycle elections in Kogi and Imo States. The era of calm down after election manipulation is gone. We are in the era of no gree for anybody. Nigerians must resist election riggers at all cost until they flee from us, and they must, because the eventual victory of good over evil is certain.