UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
PERSPECTIVES ON AFRICA'S CRISES:
THE CHALLENGES OF SOCIO-POLITICAL
AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
edited by
Solomon O. Akinboye
@
Spectrum Books Limited
Ibadan
Abuja • Benin City- Lagos • Owerri • Zaria
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© Solomon Akinboye (ed.)
First published, 2011
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CONTENTS
Foreword ix
Preface xiii
List of contributors xv
Acronyms xvii
Part One:
The historical dynamics of Africa's Crises
Chapter 1: Introduction: An overview of Africa's crises
- Solomon Akinboye 3
Chapter 2: The historical under-pinnings of Africa's
political crises -:-Nkem Onyekpe 17
Part Two:
Africa's political system and governance
Chapter 3: The nature of Africa's political system
- Remi Aiyede 61
Chapter 4: Exterminating the Scourge of authoritarianism
in Africa - Rasheed Akinyemi 99
Chapter 5: Democratisation and democratic transition
and consolidation in Africa
- Browne Onuoha 137
Chapter 6: Towards enhancing grassroots participatory
democracy for sustainable development in
Africa
- Solomon Akinboye and Omolara Quadri 160
v
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RSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
Part Three:
The economic context of Africa's crises
Chapter 7: Africa's experience at regional cooperation
and integration - Isaac Igweonwu 181
Chapter 8: West African integration and the challenge of
globalisation: Some options for Nigeria
-Cyril Obi 211
Chapter 9: Towards the implementation ofNEPAD
initiative inAfrica: Constraints and challenges
- Daniel Omoweh 249
Chapter 10: Africa's external debt and its implications for
sustainable continental development
- Solomon Akinboye 278
Part Four:
Africa's participation in global politics
Chapter 11: Africa's place and role in the restructuring
of the United Nations
- Alaba Ogunsanwo and Catherine
Onyegwara 297
Chapter 12: Africa in the World Trade Organisation
- Siyanbola Tomori and Adebayo Adebiyi 343
Part Five:
Civil Society and Gender Politics
Chapter 13: Civil Society Organisations andAfrica's
transformation in the 21 st Century
- Adigun Agbaje and Wale Adebanwi 381
VI
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Chapter 14: Africa and the paradox of gender equality
- Iyabo Olojede 399
Part Six:
Humanitarian and Security Issues
.
Chapter 15: TheAfrican refugee problem: Killing the
principle of non-Refoulement
- Fredrick Agwu 423
Chapter 16: Public Policy and HIV/AIDS inAfrica:
Evidence from Nigeria
- Samuel Ugoh and Lanre Awosika 446
Chapter 17: Terrorism and the African response
- Dele Seteolu and Aderonke Karunwi 469
Index 489
Vll
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Chapter Three
The nature of Africa's political system
RemiAiyede
Introduction
In the beginning of the 21st century, Africa faces a challenge to seize
the opportunities of this era to come out of underdevelopment, poverty
and insecurity, to stamp its feet on the global arena as a force to be
reckoned with in an increasingly globalised world. The urgency of this
challenge is underscored by the poor performance of sub-SaharanAfrica
in key indices of development in the past two decades, and the
subsequent economic and strategicmarginalisation ofAfrica in theworld
context. For instance, as at 2004, no country inAfrica has been able to
achieve the status of a high-income country. In 2002, Sub-Saharan
Africa accounts for elevenpercent of theworld's population but accounts
for less than three percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product
(GDP). According to the Human Development Report published by
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2002), while
East Asia was able to reduce poverty between the mid 1970s and
1990,social conditions in sub-SaharanAfrica worsened during the same
period. Africa entered the new millennium five percent poorer than it
was in 1990. The report also observed that in sub-Saharan Africa, only
SouthAfrica has less than ten percent incidence of child malnutrition,
while six countries within the continent have more than forty percent
oftheir population malnourished. The report states further that forty
of forty-four sub-Saharan countries, with ninety-three percent of
the region's people, grew too slowly. Half are poorer than in 1990.
61
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62 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of socio-political. ..
Eleven of the world's twenty poorest countries are to be found inAfrica.
Since the report noted that the poorest countries in the world have
suffered most from conflict, it is not surprising thatAfrica has produced
a substantial size ofthe world's refugees. Africa's debt stock has also
continued to increase.
It is generally acknowledged that these scenarios cannot be reversed
withoutpoliticaltransformation.Occurrenceswithin theAfrican continent
and the world in general has led to a recognition of the political question
as central to development in other spheres especially economic
development. Indeed, there is now a universal recognition that
development is essentially political, especially with the publication of
the 1997 World Development Report by the World Bank, that had
until then denied the political nature of development. The engagement
with the political system and politics has thrown up a series of studies
on the nature of theAfrican State. The nature ofAfrica's political system
hasbeen critical to her continuing backwardness and underdevelopment.
Many scholars have stated this point in several ways. Ake (1996a: 20)
for instance says the African crisis "is precisely a crisis of politics,
especially a crisis of anti-democratic practices". In an earlier study in
1989, the World Bank had stated that 'underlying the litany of African
development problems is a crisis of governance'. The 1997 Report
explored this theme further, as governance is used to mean the exercise
of political power to manage a nation's affairs. The report maintains
that the state plays significant roles in the development process. These
include establishing the foundation for law, maintaining a non-
distortionary policy environment, including (macroeconomic stability,
investment in basic social services and infrastructure, protecting the
vulnerable, and protecting the environment). The bottom line is that the
capacity ofthe state, its strength or weakness as seen in the political
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 63
institutions and processes as earlier argued by Migdal J. (1988) is very
critical to development.
However, understanding how the political system comes to
negatively affect development has proved to be a thorny issue. There is
indeed a lot oftheorising on the nature ofthe political crises in Africa.
The state and politics in Africa have been described by such concepts
as Prebendalism (Joseph 1987), Sultanism, predatory rule (Lewis 1996),
Politics of the belly (Bayart 1993), Criminalisation ofthe state (Bayart,
Ellis and Hibou 1999), Spoils Politics (Allen 1995), Neo-patrimonialism .
(Sandbrook 1985, Hyden 1983), Praetorianism (Diamond 1995),
Bureaucratic politics (Allen 1995, Mars 1986), Personal rule (Ake
1994, Bratton and Van de Walle 1997), and Decentralised despotism
(Mamdani 1998). Each ofthese characterisations seeks to capture the
essential feature of the political system inAfrica. In good measure, they
have offered just as much explanation as confusion to our understanding
ofthe nature of the African political system.
These theories, while reflecting varying symptoms of the political
crisis, have been challenged for several reasons. Questions have been
raised about the very foundation on which some ofthem have been
constructed. Claims of prejudice, racism and 'afro-pessimism' are said
to underlay some ofthem, being largely intellectual outputs of non-
Africa based 'imperialist' Africanists.
This chapter assumes that the theories reflect approaches to the
study of African political system and attempts a foundational description
of the African political system. It also presents decentralised despotism
as the most apt. This is because it helps us get over the question of
whether there is a model that effectively captures the realities of an
African political system, by adopting a mode of rule approach that
establishes Africa as a single unit of analysis. Beyond this, we will look
at the African political system as dynamic, hence the adoption of a
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64 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political.:
historical perspective. Moreover, the African political system has
emerged as a part ofthe global system of states and global capitalism,
hence the focus on three epochs in the life ofthe state in Africa.
Is there an Africa Political System?
The idea of political system relates to the whole idea ofhow a people
are governed. It has at its centre the state. But it includes political
institutions and formal processes of government and the dynamic interplay
of ideas and interests (Derbyshire and Derbyshire 1991 :3). Thus, the
first question that comes to mind is whether it is meaningful to talk
about a concept of the African political system. Or put in another way,
is there an African state? As we know, Africa is a diverse continent with
about fifty separate countries (states). The diversity of Africa is such
that Thompson (2000: 1) in the opening paragraph of his book, 'An
Introduction to African Politics' writes that:
Africa has a lot to offer the student of politics. It has it all. Autocrats
vie with democrats; governments espousing socialism neighbour
those bound by liberal constitutions. Some states are a model of
stability, while others are near the point of total collapse. Multiparty
systems jostle with one party states, and social divisions based on
ethnicity, religion, class and race all challenge political leaders in
their attempts to maintain order.
The politics that these realities create make Africa a
stimulating and rewarding place to study.
In this diversities, are there elements general, dear and essential enough
to constitute features of an African political system? Is there a plurality
of forms of the political system inAfrica? To be sure, these are legitimate
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 65
questions for any attempt to describe the political system in Africa.
Political scientists who have tried to confront the challenges of
generalisations about African politics have raised these questions. Hence
Chazan, (1988) and others recognised that 'there is not one but many
Africas' and Tordoff, W. (2002), admits that to 'lump these states
together and talk about African politics is somewhat misleading'. Since
these statements were not strong enough to prevent these scholars and
others from talking about African politics, in what ways did they dispose
of these questions?
One way the scholars have gone about it is to limit generalisations .
to 'common characteristics of the New African States. The
characteristics are usually identified by the frequency of their occurrences:
military coups, one-party states, corruption, ethnic politics etc. 'A second
approach has been to present a single form of African politics without
bordering to recognize differences between states and regions. A third
approach identifies a number of forms of political systems that have
occurred frequently in post-independence African history, and illustrate
them with individual states. All ofthese approaches have their own
strong and weak points, even when they claim to get to the roots ofthe
crisis ofthe African State. One general weakness ofthese approaches
is their unclear policy implications (Allen 1995). Some of them fail to
account for the three key elements of the political system in Africa, viz.:
the historical process of state formation in Africa, and as such the
specificity of the African state; the subsisting relationship between citizens
and the state; and the political economy of capitalist development that
have a strong influence on modem Africa's political system.
This chapter, in trying to overcome these weaknesses, will explore
the nature of Africa's political system in its dynamic nature, as it evolved
from the pre-colonial through colonial to the post-colonial period. The
post-colonial period is further broken down into the cold war and the
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66 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge ofsocio-political. ..
post cold war periods as they capture major momentum in the political
transitions. In doing these, it will review major theorising on the African
State while taking off from Mamdani 's theory of decentralised despotism
as providing the most salient character of Africa's political system as a
colonial legacy.
The African Political System in Crisis: A Critical Review of the
Discourse
Theorising on state crisis in Africa may be grouped into two broad
schools ofthought according to their point of departure, and several
strands of arguments teased out of each ofthe schools. The first school
ofthought takes off from the view ofthe state as captured or as an
instrument of exploitation by a class or coalition of groups or classes in
pursuit of its/their own narrow interests. This school may be subdivided
into (a) that which perceives the state as a captive of a coalition of
urban-based interests: the urban coalition theory; and (b) that which
views the state as compradoral, an instrument in the hand of Africa's
comprador capitalists for the furtherance of the interests of foreign capital:
the comprador theory. This school is identified on the score that it
perceives state crisis not in terms ofthe state's weak capacity, but as
the outcome ofthe use ofthe state to misappropriate and misallocate
national resources for the benefit of a groupe s) or class( es).
The second school ofthought is the weak capacity state school.
Here the emphasis is on the capacity of the state to carry out the normal
functions of a state in the modem world. African states are said to be
weak and vulnerable. They are neither able to mobilise popular
commitment and support nor work out and ensure stable rules in politics.
They are unable to define and implement coherent policy programmes
being as they were overwhelmed by their own 'incoherence, indiscipline
and shrinking fiscal base' (Sandbrook, 1985: 38). Three strands ofthe
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 67
argument may be teased out in the effort by this school to explain the
pathology of African states: Neopatrimonial theory, organisational theory
and monopolistic theory. For this school, African states are soft or weak,
and incapacitated, not that they rnisal1 ocate resources.
The Urban Coalition Theory
The urban coalition theory was popularised by Robert Bates in his
effort to explain the failure of agricultural policies inAfrica. Bates carried
out his research from the perspective ofthe new political economy or
what is called the rational choice theory, which attempts to apply the'
methods of bourgeois economics to the study of politics. The public
choice or new political economy perceives public policy as the outcome
of competing interests, where individual political actors, household,
enterprises, groups and coalitions mobilise resources to influence political
decisions in pursuit of material ends. With regard to Africa, Bates (1981)
sought to address the phenomena of inequality and coercion; to examine
the institutions and organisations through which these are perpetuated
and choices aggregated and constrained. As he puts it, 'Why .should
reasonable men adopt public policies that have harmful consequences
for the society they govern?' Bates found an answer in the relatively
small group of politicians/bureaucrats/soldiers who dominate the state
and use it to extract surplus from agriculture to satisfy their narrow self-
interest and to buy up support by conceding to the demands of urban-
based interest groups. Extracted surplus is channelled towards private
enrichment and in ~xchange for support of powerful urban-based elites
and groups. The coercive strength ofthe state is then to suppress the
protest by the rural poor, rural-based autonomous organisations. (Bates,
1981 :112). In the same vein, Lipton (1998) argues that the State has
been hijacked by a coalition of urban groups who act as a class. For
him, these urban groups are strong because oftheir ability to control
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68 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge ofsocio-political ...
and organise which place them at a great advantage over their rural
counterparts. State failure is perceived as resource misallocation, the
diversion of public resources to rent-seeking unproductive zero-sum
activities. The African state has given in to the political pressure of rent-
seeking groups. This misappropriation and misallocation thesis became
very influential at the Bretton Woods.
Comprador theory
The term comprador is derived from the Portuguese word used in
reference to trading agents of imperial China. These agents were
middlemen who mediated between the foreign coastal enclaves and the
hinterland and in the process accumulated personal wealth. The
comprador theory uses the term to refer to some similar characteristics
ofthe African state and its ruling class. The African bourgeoisie is
described as neither nationalist nor productive. They are therefore not
capable of genuine national development. They constitute a class of
middlemen who use the state to buy goods and services often of doubtful
value but at inflated costs from foreign firms and businessmen, and in
the process collect commissions and rents (Beckman, 1988). A very
incisive description of this situation is Turner's 'commercial triangle' of
foreign capital, Nigerian middlemen and state officials. The state is
dominated by comprador officials who perform a 'kind of gatekeeper
function' they allow entry and exit of goods and in the process may
exact a 'toll' for performing the service of opening the gate (Terisa
Turner, 1981: 159). In this way state resources are siphoned,
misdirected and misallocated for private purposes and into private
accounts in foreignbanks. The comprador theory represents anationalist
radical critique of imperialist activities and their local lackeys. As
Beckman also notes, the revelation of massive corruption and
mismanagement in the studiesproduced by committees and commissions
of inquiry in Nigeria for instance support this view. Compradorists do
not deny that corruption and mismanagement aggravate inefficiency;
they claim rather that they were largely influenced by external factors,
apart from being often necessitated by foreign intervention inAfrican
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 69
countries; that the post-colonial state is both undemocratic and alienating.
They sometimes also point to the origin of the African crisis in the
deterioration of foreign lending conditions, the debt trap, scarcity of
soft concessional lending and rising interest rates; the impact of
multinational corporations and mass decapitalisation and local
displacement (Onimode Bade, 1992: 10).
Amin Samir (1991) contrasts the role of the state in peripheral
African counties with those of the state in advanced capitalist societies.
According to him, the mastery of accumulation, by which he means the
hegemony of the bourgeois class, in the centre defines, advanced
capitalism or capitalism in its completed form. In the centre the state is
not only able to maintain the domination of capital, it is equally able to
determine the conditions of accumulation through its control over the
reproduction of the workforce, the market, the centralisation of surplus,
national resources and technology. The state is able to subordinate
external resources to the logic of national or what he calls' auto--centred'
accumulation.
On the contrary, although the peripheral state serves to maintain
the status of the dominant class, it is unable to control local accumulation.
This is because capitalism is not full fledged and civil society is feeble.
The private sector is little developed so that economics seems 'little
more than an appendage to the exercise of state functions'. The state is
dominant in economic life but its function is reduced to that of adjusting
the local economy to the demands of accumulation at the centre. The
character of the direction that adjustment takes is determined by the
directions taken by the central powers (Amin 1991: 309-310).
Neopatrimoniaiism
This theory is concerned with state politics and how these serves to
weaken the state and occasion decline in the economy. Sandbrook
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70 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge ofsocio-political. ..
(1985) argues that while the state elsewhere has facilitated capitalist
development,African states are overwhelmed by their own incoherence,
indiscipline and shrinking fiscal base. This state of affairs, he maintains,
results from the absence of a capitalist hegemonic class that is capable
of enforcing discipline and coherence on the state. In the absence of
such a class, personal role holds sway. Personal rule in turn leads to the
privatisation of governance as the state becomes penetrated by
personalised relations based on personal and communal ties. The state
becomes a tool for the fulfilment of personal and communal aspirations,
reduced, as it is, to an instrument for the distribution of patronage.
Because the state rather than entrepreneurial activity is the chief source
of surplus, the bureaucracy is carried further away from the Weberian
model; lacking essential characteristics of hierarchy, technical
competence, discipline and neutrality it gives way to reinforcing spiral
of political decay and economic decline. It is a fictitious state of armed
menwhich detaches itself from society and preys upon a dying economy.
Similarly, Goran Hyden (1983, 1990) argues that the unofficial
economy is generally predominant in Africa. Appropriation is more
informal and circulates in a network specified by relations of affection.
This type of relations based on informal and historical bonds rather
than exchange corresponds to the predominant peasant mode of
production inAfrica. The peasant mode is predominant because ofthe
limited capitalist penetration of the society, the low level of
commodification. In Africa, economic activities revolve around
personalistic ties, involving the immediate or extended family, lineage
relations, village or community bonds and religious obligations. This
social relations, which he describes as the 'economy of affection',
accounts for the patronage and ethnic politics inAfrica This is the case
because the post-colonial state is not an organic outcome of this peasant
mode of production. The state is suspended in mid air above society. It
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 71
rests on the personalised relations between men rather than the
productive system. In this circumstance, it is difficult to enforce the
performance of obligations as in exchange relations. The crisis of the
state results from the contradiction between the logic of a modem state
based on economic contract/exchange relations and that of the African
society based on covenant/affectionate relations. The ruling class is simply
not able to 'exercise systematic power' creating a problem of
incompetence and inefficiency.
Ake (1994 :7) on his part argues that the state in Africa has limited
autonomy and is immersed in class struggle. For him, the limited
autonomisation ofthe state is the result ofthe limited development of
the productive forces, the limited capitalist penetration of the economy
and society. The duality of the society makes the state merely a coercive
force unable to transform power into authority, and domination into
hegemony. The development ofthe productive forces has not attained
a level that allows for the realisation of the law of value hence the
preponderance ofprirnitive accumulation typified in the privatisation of
the state for economic gain. Because of the high level of development
ofthe state and the absence of a strong indigenous capitalist class, the
state had to spearhead development. The development effort of the
state expands its reach and its resources. The state appears to intervene
everywhere and to own virtually everything including access to status
and wealth. The struggle to win state power becomes' a matter oflife
and death'. Politics becomes warfare. The unmediated contradictions
within fractions of the dominant class, and the intense struggle for power
and resources divert attention from economics to politics. This leads to
a tenuous relationship between the ruling class and the economy. The
ruling class is therefore unable to live up to its historical role as agents of
development. What is more 'power is often over-concentrated and
fused in the presidency, political competition is notoriously intense and
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72 Perspectives on Africa scrises: A challenge ofsocio-political...
Hobbesian, while other even more fundamental conflicts may be
organised out of existence'. The organisational state although able to
mobilise resources for the purpose ofhuman emancipation on a relatively
large scale also carries along the danger of costly failure. This is because
the problem of inefficiency lies in the fact of organisation, not in the
delusions, venality and incompetence of individuals (p.19). People within
organisations remain individuals with their own aspirations and interests.
These interests are conditioned by social and cultural institutions and
technological imperatives as well as economic realities. Yet the
organisation is structured in such a manner that individuals are expected
to respond to its impersonal demands while it operates in such a way
that it depends on no one in particular. Because people remain individuals,
organisation takes on human form when issues like promotion are
discussed and goods are sold (bureaucratic politics) to customers.
Although the organisational structure is designed to check these
influences, it sometimes does not succeed. Organisation therefore holds
the potential for success as well as failure. Organisations do decline.
Mars, Theo (1986) also notes that the state as a chain of
organisational relationships may be adversely affected by a problem at
any vital point oflinkage. This may even affect the functioning ofthe
entire state system. The important points of linkage between the different
organisations of the state include the point between administrators and
technical experts, and among all ofthese as citizens. Mars. T, (1986)
goes on to enumerate some ofthese cases within the African state: the
persistent problems of political interference with the workings ofthe
bureaucracy (politics/administration relations); the conflict between central
administration and service departments, parastatals and public service.
Struggles between these groups may occasion decline or degeneration,
as manifested in the use or looting of public organisations by politicians
for election purposes, and the dependence of parastatals on the state.
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 73
The point emphasised here is that the problem of the state is that of
the chain of organisations that constitutes it. Each organisation can only
be understood in its relatedness and wider context of organisational
relationships. The chain is like a market relation that exploits the
potentialities of putting different combinations and making them serve a
purpose beyond themselves. The modem state organisation is only
showing signs of obsolesce in need of fundamental repair.
For Klitgaard Robert, (1989) what has led to the breakdown of
the state organisation, especially the bureaucracy is the wage level of
workers, which has become too low to attract and retain either needed
talent or support performance. The fiscal crisis of the state resulting
from heavy debt and other external adversities has been translated into
drastic fall in real wages in the public sector and the compression of
salary scales, eroding in the process, incentives to public employees.
This results in brain drain, inefficiency, moonlighting and demoralisation
and corruption. When these phenomena becomes generalised,
government starts to breakdown. More foreign technical assistance is
required, adding to both debt and dependence. The business of
government shifts from development to predation.
Monopolistic Theory
This theory takes us to the origin of the state as the engine of
development in the colonial era following the failure of the market in the
depression of the 1930s. According to Dutkiewicz and Williams (1987),
in a clear presentation of this view, there are two common denominators
in the crisis facing African states: (i) the centrality ofthe state which
derives from the character of colonialism, and (ii) the widespread failure
of state policies to achieve set objectives. The centrality ofthe state
makes it directly involved in surplus appropriation. Its direct involvement
expands its scope and makes it an arena of struggle between groups
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74 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of socio-political...
and classes, between the centre and localities for resources. These
struggles result in high antagonisms and exclusion rendering the system
volatile and stormy (instability). According to them, at the onset, the
colonial state played a minimal role in the produce market in colonial
Africa by ensuring the primary conditions for trade. But the fall in
revenues from imports and exports and the attendant economic and
political instability of the depression engendered the state regulation of
crop marketing and cooperatives. The success of state regulation and
control of economic activities diminished confidence in the market. The
wm;re~ntmlct gfth~§tilt~es the Ghampion of development and welfare
was accentuated in the post World War II period by a flourishing of
estatist theories, specific measures of state interventions and a more
general extension of state regulation of critical aspects of the economy.
As the scope of the state's activities expands, so also the demands
made upon it by a variety of clients increases. But the size of the
resources available to the state does not increase, nor does its capacity
to mobilise revenue enlarge, yet the state embarks on development
projects, which attempts to replicate the industrial revolution, but mainly
in its extensive accumulation variant. Import-substitution industrialisation
substitutes one form of imports for another, intensifies import dependence
and makes local production depend on imported goods and materials.
This has not only created problems of intersect oral linkages. It has also
generated both a revenue crisis and a foreign exchange crisis.
Measures to check this decline initially involved direct control over
allocation of scarce resources and a host of austerity measures. Import
licences are allocated to only clients of state officials or their patrons.
Commerce becomes more rewarding than organising production.
Bribery and corruption become institutionalised as state officials
metamorphose into businessmen, privati sing state resources for their
own benefit. The fall in the standard of living of majority ensures that
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 75
people occupy themselves with producing for their own needs and those
of their immediate families. As public service wage earners are
demoralised, moonlighting and use of public resource for private
economic activities overwhelm the bureaucracy. "The outcome ofthe
. process of expanded estatisation is a complex crisis involving not only
economic and political institutions but the culture of the society itself'
(Dutkiewicz and Williams, 1987: 43). The high point of the monopolistic
theory is that an approach to development is inherently problematic
and its crises so huge that those who control the state are unable to
handle.
The weak capacity state emphasises the inability ofthe state to
mobilise popular commitment and support, unify contending political
forces, defme and implement coherent policy programmes and adjust
the bureaucracy to the will ofthe political elite without widespread
corruption and mismanagement. According to this school, especially
the neo-patrimonial variant, the crisis of the state is essentially a case of
institutional failure, which originates from the existence of incompatible
traditional values with modem structures, a situation where state
institutions are overwhelmed by particularistic and nepotistic principles.
It is simply impossible for the modem state to work in Africa because
of this contradiction. Indeed Hyden (1990) goes on to challenge African
leaders to reconstruct the state based on peasant values of reciprocity,
which, he maintains, has refused to give. Such a prescription remains
curious and imaginative.
The neo-patrimonial discourse ultimately marks the triumph of
Samuel Huntington since it walks us back to neo-modernization
discourse involving a contrast between the 'traditional' and the 'modem'.
The traditional is then perceived to produce inefficient administrative
ritualism while the modem industrial produces efficient administrative
rationalism and the latter is defined as the desired end (Riggs, 1957 as
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76 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political ...
stated by Brette, 1987: 6). The problem of state decay is reduced to a
'single conflict between the institutional interest of the state (governance)
and the individual interests of its managers' (corruption) (Mamdani,
1992: 20). In so far as this schoolidentifies the pattern of political
relations on which appropriation is based, it is correct, but to ascribe
the persistence of this debilitating pattern of appropriation to the
incompatibility between values and structures is to miss the point. Most
discussions within the neo-patrimonial school often recognise that African
leaders were content with the structures they inherited at independence,
but they fail to inquire into why this is so. The reason is that the state has
served the accumulation purposes ofthose entrenched in the state. It
was not in their interest to have it transformed.
Even so, the state in Africa has remained resilient because it is kept
going by those who own it. As Clapham Christopher (1991 :96 - 97)
has noted, two reasons account for the resilience of the African state:
(i) 'the commitment to the state ofthose who benefit from it expressed
through institutions of government which they form a part. So long as
the state's own hierarchy and the social groups which form it continues
to hold together, it is difficult for anyone else to challenge it ... ' (ii) The
state is sustained through its contact with the outside world. Bureaucratic
structures are imported, requiring education on an external model, by
those who run them. The final resource needed to pay for it are
overwhelmingly derived from taxes on the import-export economy
A point of fact, is that the African state is no more than the regulatory
institution of peripheral accumulation. To abstract the state from the
process of accumulation, to consider it as suspended in mid-air
representing no interest at all but doing the wrong things always is to
confuse rather than clarify. In this light, the weak capacity state even in
its integration of the political economy approach or the use of the
language of class analysis walks us back to neo-modernisation theory.
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 77
Three things are responsible for the ascendance of the weak capacity
state school especially the neo-patrimonial variant: (i) the 'single-minded
focus on one aspect ofthe historical process: that of state formation'
(Mamdani, 1992: 21), (ii) the so-called absence of a national bourgeoisie
(Beckman, 1988: 20) and (iii) the perceived rise of strong men (in
(Africa Adesina, 1995). The first occurs because state process is
abstracted from the history of popular resistance. The second results
from the quick dismissal of domestic ruling classes and failure to examine
the extent to which they have been able to build some material base.
The widespread problem of corruption, privatisation of public funds, '
andmismanagement emphasised particularly by Ake must be understood
in the context of the development of a national bourgeoisie. As Adesina
(1995 :22) reminds us about the history of capitalism, the 'robber barons'
of one age very frequently become the celebrated capitalists of another
age. The situation in Nigeria is that the state is simply the centre of focus
of the robber barons oftoday, the capitalist oftomorrow.
Beckman (1988) recalls how this class in Africa, has grown out of
the opportunity offered by control of the state after flag independence,
and the particular local and international networks of businesses which
define the material conditions of these classes. He writes:
As a class, it depends on alliances with foreign capital and draws
on various forms of aid and foreign state support. However, its
control over political access gives it some real bargaining power
vis-a-vis foreign interests (1988: 30).
Researchers on the development of the national bourgeoisie in
Nigeria for instance have placed emphasis on the impact of the
indigenisation programme (particularly the second Enterprise Promotion
Decree of1977) and the impact of the rise of petroleum based foreign
earnings on the class structure of the society (Paul Collins, 1977),
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78 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge ofsocio-political...
(Ohiorhenuan, 1989). In the former, the state provided funds to Nigerians
to buy shares in transnational finns. The latter created (continues to
create) opportunity by which military and civil bureaucrats transformed
into capital-owning classes. Thus, apart from the state serving as the
creator of the large scale domestic capital, by its position as the
intermediary between domestic and foreign capital, the local bourgeoisie
have been able to engage in commercial, speculative and industrial
accumulation. 'They have been able to build up a remarkable material
base even though still subordinated to external influence' (Mustapha
1993: 119-120 citing Olukoshi 1986). Beside the rise and fall of strong
meninAfricahas been linked to the interest of west em monopoly finance,
commercial and industrial capital including western nations and creditor
institutions (Adesina, 1995: 19).
The organisational variant seems to de-emphasis the linear
evolutionism of the nee-patrimonial discourse by considering state failure
as the result of the inherent weakness of state organisations everywhere.
But if we attempt to answer for Mars, T. 1986 (since he apparently
overlooks it) the reason why this weakness becomes particularly quick
and acute inAfrica we return to the peculiar incongruity between modem
structures and traditional values. The other option is to look at the
'process of coming to life of various social forces, of their self-
consciousness and self-organisation, their vision and their capacities,
their demands and their struggles to realise these' (Mamdani, ibid: 21).
It is in this sense that the organisational variants offer some insights into
the worsening crisis of the bureaucracy under neo-liberal reforms in
Africa. Adjustment measures have resulted in the erosion of incentives
ofbureaucratic officials and workers; the strategies adopted by officials
and workers to cope with these hardships have adversely impacted on
state effectiveness. The victims of monetarist measures do have incentives
to undermine such repressive appropriation programmes. Of course, it
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 79
must be realised that the crisis of the state had become acute before the
introduction of SAP. This takes us to the consideration of the
monopolistic thesis which emphasises the issue of the overloaded state.
But again the proliferation of poorly coordinated monopolistic structures
is only classified in the regime and linked to the opportunity opened up
by the prevailing ideology of global capitalism in the post-depression
years. The monopolistic thesis is however vitiated by its failure to
understand the current crisis of state restructuring as the product of the
contradictions of the social forces at work inAfiica following the change
in this hitherto dominant ideology. That is why it concludes that' all the
king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty-Dumpy
together again' .
The captive state school attempts to attribute the crisis of the state
to the dominance of specific social forces within the state and the negative
consequences oftheir use of state power. The urban coalition theory
became very important because its conclusions as presented by Robert
Bates and taken over by the World Bank have constituted the major
ideological weapon used to promote and impose monetarist measures
on African states in crisis. The theory is used to diffuse the impression
that African economic crisis is largely domestic so that its resolution
merely requires the creating of a stable political coalition able to define
and sustain policies that have general interests. On a positive note, the
urban coalition theory has demonstrated that particular policies and
development initiatives in general are not just technical problems but
thoroughly social and political. However, it fails to take into account,
the hostile and uncertain global environment, particularly the condition
of unequal exchange in the international division oflabour, a context in
which the African state operates. Worse still, Bate's conception ofan
urban coalition of industrial capitalists and workers (the urban dwellers)
has no empirical basis. This theory has been the subject of intense debate
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80 Perspectives on Africa scrises: A challenge ofsocio-political ...
between development experts and it has been rejected on both empirical
and methodological grounds. The empirical critique questions the claim
ofheterogeneity of rural Africa and the assumption of an overwhelming
rural/urban divide. It has been argued that available evidence points to
a split between the poor and the rich in both rural and urban areas; that
the particular form of exploitation was entrenched by the Import
Substitution Industrialisation (ISI) created by a particular class
configuration. Import substitution strategy was championed by western
regimes, multilateral bodies and transnational capital in the 1960s and
1970s. In so far as it relates to labour, questions are also raised about
the alleged excessive political muscle of workers (Adesina, 1994).
The methodological critique is on the limits and inadequacies ofthe
new political economy of the new right and the market efficiency value
that underlies it (See John Dearlove, 1987, Colin Leys, 1996, John
Toye, 1991).
The compradortheory is a variant of the dependency school's critique
and challenges to the development of the modernisation school and the
economic determinism of classical Marxism. The salience of this theory
is in its empirical characterisation of the particular nature of primitive
accumulation in Africa. But it fails to analyse state failure and primitive
accumulation as two sides of the same coin (Mustapha 1993: 118).
Dismissing the local bourgeoisie as unproductive, it refuses to analyse
the bourgeoisie's failure to exercise power and hegemony. It therefore
could not capture the dialectic underlying its object of explanation. It
fails to take into account 'how the manner in which the state is used to
serve ruling class interests provides the focal point of opposition to the
state by subordinated classes' (Beckman, 1988: 32). State process
cannot be abstracted from the history of popular resistance, or the
class configuration that defines its nature and role. Indeed the state is
not a static phenomenon, its nature and role changes according to the
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 81
rhythm of accumulation. At a particular -conjuncture the "state may
become" pervasive in order to foster the social structure of accumulation
by nurturing a capitalist class and collaborating with capital to
subordinate labour (Ohiorhenuan, 1989: 74). This process may include
the granting of concessions to labour. At another conjuncture, the
pervasive state may become due for restructure when it is perceived to
have become too expensive to keep or perceived to be an obstacle to
accumulation. But all processes of social transformation carry the imprint
of the processes of 'coming to life of various social forces, their self-
consciousness and self-organisation, their vision and their capacities,
their demands and their struggles to realise these' (Mamdani, 1992.).
As regards the adjustment crisis in Africa, Leys reminds us ofPolanyi's
famous observation that laisser faire taken literally was incompatible
with the survival of society itself:
... there has always been a reaction .against the market society
doctrine making the history of capitalism a 'double movement', not
a single one: the drive to expand the market and liberate it from
constraints has always been countered by an effort to rein it in and
resubordinate it to social needs.
Thus, any attempt to understand the African political system must move
beyond the engagement with the crisis of a particular epoch to trace the
contours of its evolution over time. The remaining part of this chapter
attempts to map out Africa's political system in its evolution within the
wider developments of the international political economy and global
capitalism.
Historiography of the African Political System
Pre-Colonial Africa's Political System
Pre-colonial Africa is made up of a variety of societies, identified by
cultural practices, languages and forms of socio-political organisations.
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82 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political ...
These societies were independent kingdoms; emirates, empires and
other decentralised lineage/clan-based organisations. The latter, a form
of decentralised village self governments as we find in Igbo land in
Eastern Nigeria., among the slash and bum agriculturists of northern
Uganda and the pastoralist communities ofKaramoya and the East
African rift Valley. The kingdoms, empires and emirates were systems
with centralised political authorities. The king or emir was the supreme
authority with control over land. This form of rule was common in several
parts of Africa. It includes the Ethiopian empire traced back to the
Solomonian dynasty in central Africa., Benin Kingdom, Oyo kingdom,
Sokoto Caliphate and the Asante empire of West Africa., the Buganda
and Bunyoro kingdom of East Africa, and the Zulu Kingdom of South em
Africa. Some of these states emerged out ofintemal differentiation while
a few were conquest states.
Most of these societies were largely peasant societies, made up of
kin-based hereditary traditional chiefs and state-appointed administrative
chiefs to implement collective goals; under a central authority headed
by a king, or Emperor. In decentralised systems, there were clan and
lineage based councils that made and enforce rules. Thus, pre-colonial
African societies achieved, to varying degrees of success, effective
resources allocation and sustainability. They achieved varying levels of
modernisation. Indeed, the kinship linkages ensured that personal rights
of children and the aged were respected. This resonates in what is
popularly regarded as the extended family system that continues to
characterise social relations inAfrica.
Pre-colonial African societies were marked by forms ofinteraction
among African societies, and with non-Africans, including Arabs and
Europeans. Indeed, there were several trading posts in East, West and
Southern Africa by the 17th century. Items of trade included gold, ivory
and slaves. As should be expected, these series of interactions influenced
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 83
the nature of political development in Africa. A significant development
was the emergence of conquest states like the Ngoni conquest in central
and East Africa and the Fulani Jihad in West Africa, which subjugated
peasant societies and threw up internal slaves. In fact, the early 19th
century (1840-1885) saw the acceleration of political growth. These
were accentuated by the emergence of militant Muslim brotherhoods
and state builders. Prominent among these were the Al-hajj Umarwho
spear headed the Tijarniyya brotherhood and created the Tokolor
Empire in the Sudan. Also of note is the Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia
that unified and modernised Ethiopia (Tidy and Leeming, 1980).
AlthoughAfrican societies experienced centralised power, especially
in the monarchical and conquest states, the monarchies were never
absolute. There existed various forms of checks and balances that
constrained the autocratic ambitions of kings. In the Bugandakingdom
for example, although the king had supreme control over land, personnel
that came from both humble and noble backgrounds make up the larger
proportion ofthe administrative machinery. In fact, commoner chiefs
dominated chieftaincy institutions. Clans often organised to challenge
the excesses of the king. In several other societies, the idea of freedom
is embodied in the right to participate in decision making through lineage
representatives, secret societies, occupational guilds, associations of
commoners and other groups. Some ofthese groups enjoy the right to
remove an errant king and force him to go on exile or commit suicide as
in the Ogboni society in the Yoruba states of West Africa (Mamdani
2002, Ebong 1989 Olisa, 1989,Agbaje 1989, Tidy and Leeming 1980,
Deflem 1999, Smith 1976).
However, all these were greatly transformed by market driven
colonialism visited on Africans by the Europeans in the 19th Century.
Colonialism has had so great an impact on the African social and political
organisations that it has created a common backcloth for an analysis of
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84 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political.:
political institutions in Africa in the postcolonial period. The colonial
period is the focus ofthe next part of this essay.
Colonial Africa's Political System.
The nature of the colonial African political system was determined by
the logic of capitalist expansion and the exploitation of African peoples
and societies for this purpose. The colonial system involved the disruption
_ of existing practices, institutions, values and political organisations to
serve capitalist exploitation and domination. It involved transformation
oflocal institutions and values into or subordination to norms, institutions
and values of western capitalist societies in a perverse manner but with
positive consequences for colonial exploitation (Coleman 1986; 51,
Okafor 1981:31).
Mamdani (1999) characterised it as decentralised despotism,
involving a form of indirect rule through the redefinition and use oflocal
institutions hand in hand with introduced western state apparatus to
establish a regime of compulsion. This regime was called forth by the
need to ensure that Africans, no longer needed as slaves in plantations
in the new world, were made to stay at home to produce raw materials
needed to feed European manufacturing industry.
Colonialism created a state with a two tiered structure. The first tier
was the native authorities or the local state that governed peasants. The
native authorities were put in charge oflocal groups defined as tribal or
ethnic groups distinct from one another. These local authorities were in
turn supervised by white officials deployed from the racial pinnacle at a
colonial centre. This structure transformed the power content of
traditional institutions ofthe societies. It reinforced the powers of
administrative chiefs and kings and freed it from traditional constraints
of internal organisational structure and popular participation. Thus, the
colonial state was essentially an unrestrained power. The native authorities
were no longer responsive or responsible to the local people but to the
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 85
colonial authorities which provided them with western weapons of
compulsion, the colonial police and army, Although these institutions
were traditional or customary authorities, they no longer existed to fulfil
the collective goal ofAfiican societies b~t the purpose of colonialism.
The logic of decentralised despotism is particularly evident in what
has been referred to as indirect rule. Lord Lugard who was Governor
ofNorthem Nigeria (1906-191 0) and later the whole ofNigeria (1912-
1914), described the process of indirect rule in this manner.
The first step is to endeavour to find a man of influence as chief,
and to group under him, as many villages or districts as possible, to
teach him to delegate powers, and to take an interest in his native
treasury, to support his authority and to inculcate a sense of
responsibility.
Such a person could be a traditional ruler (king or emir) or an influential
or wealthy person who is appointed chief (in societies where no
centralised authority exist) to act as a go between the colonial
administration and their people. It was a form of 'relay administration in
which policies originated at the top of the colonial administration and
the 'traditional ruler or appointed chief' was no more than an
administrative courier' (Ayoade 1995: 19). However, the courier was
not only a conveyor but also an enforcer, accountable only to the colonial
centre from where power resides. This was the case because the values
that animated the system of indirect rule were control, direction and
subservience to colonial exploitation (Gboyega 1987 :8). The colonial
police and the army quelled popular challenges to the actions of these
local authorities. The colonial powers deposed kings who dared to
flout directives and installed new individuals to replace them. Clan based
assemblies where issues were subject to debate, criticisms and decisions
were converted into forums where decisions were merely communicated
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86 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political.:
to the people. The central colonial officer had veto power over all
decisions of chiefs and their councils. Thus, the colonial state was an
unrestrained state (see Mamdani, 1999).
Secondly, the colonial state was absolute, over-arching and
pervasive. It had to be so in order to penetrate traditional society and
redirect its 'raison d' etre' from self-sufficiency and sustainability to
fulfilling the needs of the colonising country. Colonial power and
structures of exploitation had to be established. Hence, the state
introduced administrative structures and institutions to break up
traditional social relations of production. It created administrative
frameworks and tax laws that transformed existing relations of
production, atomised society and freed labour for public works like the
building of roads, railways and ports to facilitate export of agricultural
produce and the import of finished goods. It forced African farmers to
produce those commodities that were needed by the manufacturing
firms in Europe. The state controlled every aspect of the colonial
economy, including educating Africans to provide the relevant skills in
administration.The state tightly controlled and dominated these societies
in order to exploit them with minimum cost to the empire (Ake, 1996).
However, due to racism, high exploitation and the arbitrary use of
power, colonial rule was never widely accepted as legitimate rule. Thus,
the colonial state had to rely on coercion and violence rather than
authority to maintain dominatiOn. During these periods, the state was
feared, avoided, abused and challenged depending on the circumstances
and opportunities (Cohen 1974, Ekeh 1994). In the long run Africans
began to clamour for self rule, especially after the Second World War,
a period that witnessed nationalist fervent among educated Africans
both within Africa and abroad. Nationalist consciousness eventually
exploded into a full-fledged movement for self-determination and
independence of African states in the 1950s. The activities of radical
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 87
nationalists drawn from among trade unions, students, ex-servicemen,
women and urban dwellers in the form of public demonstrations, riots,
strikes, boycotts and agrarian conflicts attracted, first repression and
later rapid decolonisation.
However, in handing over power, the colonial office was careful to
ensure that power was handed down to the conservative wings ofthe
nationalist movements in a manner that ensured that power, as constituted
by the colonial state was never transformed. The all powerful and
arbitrary state was competed for in the context ofthe structures of
colonial social relations. Clientelism, ethnicity, exclusion and fierceness
that characterised politics of de-colonisation were carried over into the
post-colonial era. These resulted in dictatorships and political instability
in the post-colonial period.
The Post-Colonial Political System.
The post-colonial political system is best understood in the context of
two developments in the political history of the world system. The first
period began in 1945 with the end ofthe Second World War to 1989
when socialism collapsed, which is the cold war era. The second, period
is marked by the ascendance of neo-liberal ideology and what Samuel
Huntington has described as the third wave of democracy.
The Cold War Era.
At the dawn of independence, there was excitement and hope and a
growing sense of Africanness as colonial administrators handed over
power and positions in public office to Africans. Even in the euphoria of
independence however, Africans faced two challenges concerning the
path of development to be taken by the newly independent states. The
first was question of identity and unity of Africa. For instance, what
should be the organisational form and boundaries of the African states?
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88 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political ...
Should states created by the colonial powers be retained? Or should
there be a reorganisation or adjustment of boundaries? Should Africa
constitute a single state or should the various independent states be
sovereigns within a continent-wide association of states to pursue
common goals and interests? Initially, there was division between the
radicals and moderates on these issues, that is, between those who
wantoutrightunification and those that preferred gradual unity beginning
with a form of association of independent states. Ultimately a lose
Organisation-of African Unity (OAU) was formed without power to
intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The colonial
boundaries were also to be maintained.
The second relates to the institutional and ideological path of
development. Once the first was settled, each state adopted various
formsofgovernment and ideologies. Ghana underNkrumah's Covention
Peoples Party (CPP) adopted socialism. Tanzania under Nyerere
adopted Ujamaah, a form of African socialism, and Nigeria and Ivory
Coast toed the capitalist path. But the O.A.U was non-aligned, nearly
all the new independent states claimed to be non-aligned. The countries
adoptedvarious institutional frameworks: Federal or unitary,presidential
or parliamentary, single party or multiparty. Many ofthese structures
did not endure. Some countries moved from one system to another.
Severalmultiparty systems degenerated into singlepartieswhile electoral
processes were abused, leading to dictatorships, as leaders sought to
occupy the highest position in government for life.Military took hold of
politics for over two decades in some countries with several ~cidences
of coups and counter coups in many countries.
The cold war period was a context that provided the new African
leaders alternative paths to development. It provided room for
experimentation and manoeuvre in the relations among states inAfrica
and in their relations with the super powers and other third world
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 89
countries of Latin America and Asia as the soviet bloc and the capitalist
west strove to dominate the world. The context also held opportunities
concerning the strategies of control and forms of support open to African
leaders in sustaining regimes locally.
At independence, it was thought that de-racialising the state by
replacing the Whiteman with Africans would be sufficient to make the
state to service development in Africa. In the words ofNkrumah: 'seek
ye first the political kingdom and all other things will be added unto
you'. Hence, the promise at independence was that the state would be .
used to develop African societies and thereby raise the quality oflife of
African peoples. Thus, the state's administration was further extended
as a necessity for achieving stability to provide a conducive environment
for the pursuit of development. Thus, the post-colonial state in Africa
remained pervasive and overarching. As such, it became a veritable
resource, the major source of wealth and social mobility in Africa.
Naturally, the state as the major economic resources became an arena
of struggle such that social life became over politicised. As internal
struggles for power intensified, African leaders became absorbed in the
effort to retain and sustain power. The framework of development was
redefined as requiring values of obedience and conformity, unity of
purpose and utmost discipline. Political opposition was criminalised.
Single parties became the rule. Politics became even more intense and
divisive. Political disorder and instability became prevalent, manifesting
in the frequent occurrences of coups, corruption, violence, rigging,
thuggery and ethnicity etc. as both incumbents and opposition in
desperation adopted everything available to access power. The struggle
for the control ofthe state so absorbed the energies of African rulers
that development had to take a second place.
Furthermore, the state at independence was not just an instrument
in the hands of the colonial powers; it was also the structural linkage of
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90 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge ofsocio-political ...
African economies to the global capitalist systems. Africa was integrated
into the capitalist system as a source of raw materials for industries in
Europe, disarticulating the economies as well as subj ecting them to
policies and decision ofthe capitalist centres. Thus, the post-colonial
state was also subject to neo-colonialism and imperialism, posing serious
entrepreneurial leadership challenges that the rulers of Africa were ill
prepared for. Therefore 'the political environment at independence was
profoundly hostile to development. The struggle for power was so
absorbing that everything else including development was marginalized'
(Ake, 1996a:7).
As should be expected, the promise of independence was not
fulfilled after two decades of self-rule. In stead, the failure of development
programmes due to lack of commitment saw African countries thrown
into a crisis of governance. In fact, by mid 1980s, nearly all of sub-
Saharan African countries were steep in economic recession. Even the
modest economic growth achieved in the first years of independence
was reversed. During the period, Africa began to accumulate debts,
such that the debt burden has become a major feature of Africa's
underdevelopment in the new millennium This crisis that began in the
1980s spiralled into every facet of Africa's social and political institutions.
Neo-Iiberal reform programmes adopted to arrest the growing and
persisting downturn in the economy deepened distrust among the various
groups and individuals competing for Africa's diminishing resources.
This is because they involved a retrenchment of the state through
privatisation and commercialisation (removal of subsidies and
introduction of user charges, wage freezes and currency devaluation)
and deregulation, which worsened social Conditions and provoked public
protests, riots and demonstrations. Widespread organised opposition
to governments across the continent followed even as the conditions of
existence became unbearable for the larger part of the populace. While
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The Nature of Africa's Political System 91
violence and civil wars eventually broke out in some countries, it led to
politicallibera1isation in many more, as civil society organisation emerged
to challenge political repression, demand respect for human rights, rule
oflaw and multiparty democracy. These mark the beginning ofthe
contemporary phase in the development of Africa's political system:
Africa's second independence or the era of political renaissance, to use
the words ofThabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa.
The Post cold war Era: Africa's Political Renaissance?
Civil unrest, violent conflicts and poverty deepened all over sub-Saharan
Africa in the 1990s. Democratic openings also occurred in several
countries, as Africa became part of the third global democratic wave.
There were returns to multiparty systems, as elections took place in
several countries. Some incumbents were replaced by opposition parties.
Civil society became vibrant. The genocide in Rwanda, the civil wars in
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and the Sudan combined to refocus the
attention of Africa's leaders to the question of security, stability and
progress. With the unravelling ofthe arrangements put in place in the
post independence period, it became clear that there is a need for a
concerted effort by Africans to arrest the deepening crisis that had
engulfed the continent and reversed development. This consciousness
was given momentum by several successful independent regional
interventions in conflict situations in different countries of Africa. This
practically rendered the non-interference clause in the OAU charter
unsustainable. Besides, the sub-regional intervention in internal conflicts,
the new international human-rights regime and humanitarian intervention
processes served to put an end to the ideology ofnon-interference in
internal conflicts. These processes were enhanced by the great
transformations in the global system driven by break through in
information and communications technology and the growth in
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92 Perspectives on Africa s crises: A challenge of 'socio-political.:
regionalisation typified by the emergence of the European Union (EU).
The promise of regional integration and consciousness thus transformed
the OAU into the African Union (AU) and a blue print for the overall
development of Africa was developed: New Economic Partnership for
Africa's Development (NEPAD) and launched in 2001. While the
NEPAD is essentially a development initiative, aimed at achieving
economic development and social welfare for Africans, it has emerged
within an accelerated move to achieve sub-regional economic integration
in various parts of the continent (for example: Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS), SouthemAfrica Development Co-
ordination Conference (SADCC) and Common Market for East and
SouthemAfrica (COMESA). What is more, talks on a union government
for the continent have commenced. Perhaps, we should look forward
to a United States of Africa. If this happen, the contours of politics and
political institutions in Africa will be more neatly conceptualised from an
institutional perspective.
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