Abuja School, Others Launch W’African Democracy Observatory to Bolster Good Governance

Folalumi Alaran in Abuja

The Abuja School of Political Thought (ASPT), in collaboration with Save Democracy Group West Africa (SDGWA), have launched the West African Democracy Observatory, as part of effort to strengthen democracy across the West African region.

This was announced during a policy dialogue themed: ‘’Democracy and the future of ECOWAS’, held Tuesday, in Abuja.

The Director, ASSPT, Dr. Sam Amadi, while bemoaning the recent move by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to withdraw from the bloc, said the initiative aims to monitor and promote democratic processes in the region.

He likewise expressed concern over the recent announcement by President of Senegal to indefinitely postpone the presidential election of the country, scheduled for February 25, just hours before official campaigning was due to start.

Furthermore, while also bemaoning the spate of poverty, insecurity and economic instability in the region, he added that the failure of democracy in Africa is also the failure of development, and the failure of human welfare.

His words: “The notice of exit by the three countries that have witnessed successful coup: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger who I think two weeks ago wrote to say there they’ve withdrawn and they laid serious allegations against ECOWAS which one of those is that they have not been very useful to them in their strategic fight against insecurity, as well as the fact that maybe they have not supported them in their quest for national development.

“The second significant development is the postponement of presidential election in Senegal by Michael Sally, the president. This is very worrisome because two factors: his tenure ought to end in a few months and without the presidential election there will be no succession.

“And so the news coming from Senegal is that there may be a likely an unconstitutional extension of his tenure and this is the backdrop to the fact that he had struggled to amend the Constitution or to have extension of his tenure. So, we’ve seen massive protests in the streets of Dhaka.

“We’ve also seen repressive measures, to maybe curtail that all these are worrisome. For us, we in the Abuja School and Save Democracy Group in West Africa consider the travail of democracy in West Africa as serious because of three factors one, the West African sub region is probably the poorest part of the the world as you know. Top 10, you will see one or two or three coming from West Africa

“Secondly, it also occupies very undignified place in the list of terrorised and violent and fragile state. So, if you look at the Sahel which is where some of these countries are: Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, even the gulf of guinea, they are also troubled by terrorism groups, ISWAP, local terrorists such as Boko Haram and of course some secessionist movements in the south part of Nigeria.

“So, it is really a high profile and fragile region. If you factor that high poverty rate and stagnant economic development as you see from the GDP of some African States, it is very very depressed.

“The failure of democracy in Africa is actually the failure of development, the failure of human welfare, so we are worried as a school that this is not just spiting ECOWAS or the Nigerian government as some might see it because Nigeria’s leading role in stopping the coup. This is actually serious challenge to to sustainability of livelihood in West Africa.

“So, this triple action: rising poverty, rising fragility and violence, and of course, decreasing economic stagnation and depression in terms of economic growth means that this should be a prime place for focus for Africans and internation people. The politics of Africa needs more democratisation. So, the Abuja does not only want to condem this development but to seek for explanation why democracy is failing in West Africa.

“But, we have resolved in this way to set up the West African democracy observatory. The idea like we did with election observatory in 2023, is that this is a shaping stone. We want to pay attention to what is going on in West Africa in terms of democracy and development, and be able to help provide strategic thinking, policy ideas to help government train even trained policymakers and how to engage.”

On his part, the regional coordinator, SDGWA, Law Mefor, maintained that democracy is not the problem, but how it has been wrongly practiced is the reason for lack of development in Africa.

“I do believe that it is not democracy that has failed, but how democracy has been practiced here. And for us say that democracy has failed anywhere particularly in Nigeria and West Africa, democracy ought to be first and foremost, practiced and practiced properly.

“And our observations, based on empirical analysis, pointed to the fact that democracy has not been practiced properly here. What we have is a civil rule and it is degenerating to clear oligarchy and state capture”, he said.