Dr. Bawumia unveiling the book in the conference room of CDD-Ghana
VICE PRESIDENT Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has launched a book on the workings of democracy in Africa.
The book titled: “Democracy Works: Rewiring Politics to Africa’s Advantage” is co-authored by former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obansanjo, Greg Mills, Jeffrey Herbst and former Zimbabwean Finance Minister, Tendai Biti.
The eight-chapter book is based on more than 300 interviews conducted across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe with policymakers, politicians and analysts.
It explores how Africans can learn to nurture and deepen democracy on the continent to ensure economic growth and political stability.
The book which has its foreword written by former Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, typifies a ‘democratic playbook’ to meet the threats to free and fair elections.
Speaking at the launch on Monday in Accra, Dr. Bawumia expressed optimism that readers would find the book “very useful.”
According to him, at the introductory section of the book is a conscious attempt to show the link between democracy and development.
Over the years, he said, the narrative on how best to spur Africa’s development has struggled to establish an optimal governance structure that can serve as the best vehicle for the realization of Africa’s development agenda.
Making references to past scholarly works on Africa’s democracy and development, he said: “Undoubtedly, also the problems with Africa’s development are not just about limitation econometrics or the unreliability of statistics.”
‘Democracy Works’, he said, presents an account of international and African politics and democracy. It provides a stern critique to jurisdictions that use authoritarian and hybrid regimes which combine elements of electoral democracy with autocratic governance to centre on strong populist personalities and thrive on the absence of strong functioning state institutions.
The book, according to the vice president, also attempts to navigate through the challenges that are likely to hinder Africa’s democracy.
“In the minds of the authors which I agree with, in a system where basic institutions are lacking and material deprivation abounds, rule-based democracy suffers,” Dr Bawumia stated.
He added that “in view of these limiting factors, several schools of thoughts have emerged as to the best way forward. At one arm of the debate is a call for transitional requirements to Africa’s democratization agenda. Here, a coalition government is advocated as a solution particularly in fragile states and this is seen in chapter six of the book.”
‘Blind Eyes’
In a brief remark, Mr. Obansanjo criticized the international community particularly the Western World for constantly branding Rwanda an ‘authoritarian’ state under President Paul Kagame when the international community folded its arms and watched the atrocities in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide that claimed about 800,000 lives.
According to him, there are no two countries where the democratic systems and practices are identically the same.
BY Melvin Tarlue