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The Presidency has reacted to the comment by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the current state of Nigeria’s democracy.
While speaking at a high-level consultation on “Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy for Africa” on Monday, November 20, 2023, Obasanjo said the Western style of democracy failed in Africa because it did not take into consideration the views of the majority of the people.
He described the Western liberal democracy as a “government of a few people over all the people or population”, adding that African countries should not be operating a system of government in which they have no hands in its definition and design.
“We have a system of government in which we have no hands to define and design and we continue with it, even when we know that it is not working for us.
“Those who brought it to us are now questioning the rightness of their invention, its deliverability and its relevance today without reform,” the ex-president stated.
Obasanjo, therefore, proposed an “Afro democracy” tailored to the unique needs of the African continent.
Reacting to Obasanjo’s submission, Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy in an interview with ThePunch said the former President introduced the democracy Nigeria currently practises to the country.
“Obasanjo ought to know that he brought this thing into Nigeria. He was the one who made us adopt it in 1979. He must have seen it as expensive and unsuitable when he governed us for eight years and even wanted an extension for another four years.
“So, the way he is sounding, it is like the man is getting wiser after leaving office, Onanuga remarked.
Onanuga said if Obasanjo believes in what he said, he should be calling for the return of the parliamentary system Nigeria practised after its independence instead of advocating for ‘Afro democracy.’
“If he believes in what he is saying now, he ought to be an advocate of the need to go back to the parliamentary system.”
“We were practising the parliamentary democracy the British left for us. Then, the military struck in 1966. And when we were going to return to democracy, instead of going back to what we were practising before, parliamentary democracy, which was not expensive, it was this same Obasanjo who accepted the recommendation of the constitutional assembly at that time that recommended this American-style democracy.”
“Something that should have been under him from 1999 to 2007, he even made attempts to modify the constitution.”