Africa’s “big men” in the continent’s democratic experiments

The new wave of democracy in Africa ¹ is evolving but still fragile. Since independence, politics in most African states oscillates between democratic regime type and authoritarian regime type (either in form of military authoritarianism or civilian authoritarianism of the one-party state). Yet Africa’s political class (big men) has learnt nothing from history as their actions and inactions portend serious threat to the nascent democracy. Africa’s “big men” have been deeply involved in competitive looting or primitive accumulation of capital. It becomes a matter of who out-competes the other in looting of the national treasury. The resultant effects of all these have been crisis of political succession, challenges of alternating political party in power and problems of regime change often leading to internal conflicts, social unrest, political impasse, civil disobedience, popular revolts, insurgencies, etc.