US-based international human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe has decried the negative example set by last week’s U.S. presidential election for democracy in Africa.

In remarks during an interactive session at the President Wilson Center Think Tank in Washington yesterday entitled “Trendlines and Transformations in African Democratic Governance Lessons for US-Africa,” Ogebe lamented that America is becoming like Africa where coupists are subsequently elected back into power.

Earlier, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy Dahna Rand had asked for suggestions from the dialogue for improved US-Africa engagement. Below are the video clip and transcripthttps://www.facebook.com/share/v/19WKGypLEZ/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Dr Oge: Thank you very much, Charles. So I promised that I wanted to keep this interactive, so I want to go turn to the audience now to see if there are any questions. I can take one or two questions now before I turn back to our panelists with a few questions. So we have two questions here. Please introduce yourself and keep it to a question.

Let’s start with Dr. Utomi over here. There’s a microphone.

Prof Pat Utomi: Um, my, my, my name is Patrick Utomi, I’m a fellow here at the Wilson Center. I am curious about something that, uh, Peter Lewis and I had a session on, um, the Afrobarometer just in the early days at the Lagos Business School and the affect that people felt for democracy and all of that.

It wasn't stomach infrastructure pushing it clearly back in those days where people wanted democracy. Now we see, James Robinson in his remarks after they were awarded the Nobel Prize two or three weeks ago, makes a point that development is an intensely political process. It seems to me that most people are feeling that they cannot have their desires for a better life represented in the political system, and therefore, are turning more to a sense Thanks for watching.

If democracy can’t help us live well, what’s the point of it? I wonder what sense you get for this as we look at, uh, reactions to democracy in today’s world. Thank you, Dr. Utomi, and the gentleman behind him.

Barrister Emmanuel Ogebe: Yes, my name is Emmanuel Ogebe with the U. S. Nigeria Law Group. I think that we actually should reframe the question, which is, what are the trend lines of democracy in America?

Uh, showing to Africa, uh, if we look at the recent election, it really mirrors what has happened in Africa. We see a situation where someone who tried to overthrow a government is being elected as President of America. That’s what Buhari did. He tried to overthrow a government successfully, and he came back as head of state

The only difference, of course, is that. Buhari ruled as a dictator and came back as a Democrat and Trump ruled as a Democrat and is coming back as a dictator. And so I would say that America, uh, for some reason is trending in the wrong direction and is maybe misdirecting Africa. I should end my thoughts with one quick, uh, comment about the stomach infrastructure.

We talked about African electorate being susceptible to economic. Uh, necessities. And if you look at the expressions of the electorate in America, it was the same thing. Stomach infrastructure. They believed false economic indicators, and that was the reason why they claimed they voted the way they did.

So at the end of the day, I think America is becoming a failing democracy, and it is sending a wrong signal to Africa. Thank you.

Dr Oge: Thank you very much. So with those two questions about development being a deeply political process or development being seen as a political process and what are the trendlines in the US.

S. and elsewhere showing, uh, the continent, Peter, what of those questions was directed to you, sir? Dr Peter Lewis: Well, on the, uh, you know, referring to the, to the Afro barometer, uh, issue and, and the definition of democracy, we, you know, Afrobarometer has asked people, uh, what does democracy mean to you? It’s an open ended question.

It's not set, you know, sort of, uh, uh, multiple choice, uh, question. And some people, say in South Africa, clearly express a kind of human, human, uh, communitarian and social democratic understanding of democracy. Democracy is equality. Democracy is poverty reduction. Democracy is prosperity for all. Those are the kinds of answers you get.

And you get that sometime, you know, Uh, in, uh, some, uh, West African countries and, and other, uh, uh, places as well. And then many countries, uh, in many countries across the continent, you get answers that, uh, comport with a kind of standard liberal democratic definition of democracy. They say it’s free and fair elections, it’s freedom of speech or freedom of assembly, it’s multiple parties, it’s, it’s an open political, uh, uh, sphere.

Uh, and, you know, these are not, uh, educated, uh, urban residents that are only being surveyed. They’re also, uh, farmers and people who live in, uh, the hinterland and so forth. So this is, these are the answers that they come out. Now, um, so what it suggests in line with, uh, Pat’s question is there are intrinsically political elements.

To, uh, the process of political change that people are looking to. Um, am I able to express a voice through elections? Do we get any, uh, accountability of leadership? Um, whether it’s MPs between elections listening to me, uh, or policy initiatives from the parties or from the government that address inflation or, uh, food shortages, or any number of other, or, or health emergencies, or any number of other questions, um, or are we looking at a distant, transactional political class that really is not interested in, in our concerns, or in our, uh, uh, in, in our interests, our fundamental welfare, and it’s just sort of, you know, Uh, feeding from the trough, uh, and doing deals amongst themselves, uh, and that can give rise to, uh, anti-democratic sentiments, it can give rise to violent mobilization as it has in Nigeria, where, uh, we’ve seen a surge in violence across the country, uh, over the last 25 years, and, uh, so we can, we can get different kinds of responses from that.

I’ll stop there.

Dr Oge: Does anyone want to touch on the question on what the trend lines in the U. S. and elsewhere are showing, um, to the continent? Charles?

Dr Charles Ukeje, OAU Ife: Um, thank you very much. It’s something I was pondering as I was, um, preparing to come here. I feel that, um, one of the things I hear people talk about is, if you cannot help me, don’t complicate my problem.

Um, I hear people on the continent say, for instance, that, um, look, established democracies themselves are in tumour, um, from Europe to North America. And so how, because of the kind of challenges that they face within, um, the commitment that we used to see in terms of democracy promotion is no longer there.

Um, and that raises a very important question about, you know, um, as long as established democracies are themselves at the crossroad, to what extent should we expect that, you know, they would, um, be able to add value to any process of democracy. Another point is really that, um, we are seeing things happening in established democracies that some of them cannot or may not even happen on the continent, as bad as the reality on the continent is.

I mean, look at Europe today, uh, from the UK to France to Netherlands, you know, it’s been, you know, an upsurge in far right political parties and ideologies. It’s been, you know, xenophobia against others. It’s been anti-Semitism, you know, and all of these. And these are countries that have been, you know, very significant contributors, including the U.S. actually, you know, um, to democracy promotion on the continent. So there’s a whole lot of worry. You know, there’s a whole lot of worry that, you know, established democracies today, um, especially if they have to make a choice between stability and democracy. We choose stability on the continent because stability helps to promote market, okay?

Um, nobody wants to invest, nobody wants to foray into a space where there is instability. So if you have stability, It doesn’t matter what kind of stability. It doesn’t have to be stability, you know, a democracy induced stability. So if democracy is going to be tumultuous on the continent, but you can have stability of different forms, then why not?

So there’s today, um, that concern, and I hear it from colleagues, I hear it from people in government that, look, after all, you guys are not better than us. And for me, this is one major, um, Um, negative vibes that is coming from established, um, democracies about, you know, the prospects, you know, for the continent.

Mm-Hmm, uh, if you can’t deliver in on elections, something as basically elections, what basis are you going to, um, expect, you know, um, African countries that are struggling with so many different things to be able to deliver on elections and in a way that emboldens the political elite in many of, you know, um, in many African countries to, you know, to.

You know, just basically act in ways that can promote impunity and undermine, um, democracy.

Dr Oge: Did you want to add something, Rubia?

Dr Tawfik: Yeah, I think on the two points very quickly. Uh, I think we sometimes, uh, do not Put these debates in historical perspective and, and kind of forget that we have been there before.

I mean, in the 1950s and 60s, this was the narrative, right? That well, Africa cannot actually afford pluralism and democracy and thus let’s tackle development first. And the, you know, the experience of the, of the four decades from the 50s until the end of the 80s, you know, indicated that this did not happen.

And even more recently, the, the, you know, the, the coups that, you know, justified the military overthrow of a democratically elected president because he is not able to deliver on stability, we have seen in the last two, three years that they are not able also to deliver the mission of stability. And even in North Africa, we have this kind of social pact that, well, we’re going to offer you subsidies and employment and so on in exchange for the loyalty for the regime.

Again, this did not deliver. So, um, I think we should not repeat the same mistake of assuming that having more authoritarian regime will actually deliver on democracy. And then, and then secondly, I think we have reason to be pessimistic about the prospects and established democracies and how they’re impacting our own experiences.

But what I can see also is that, you know, in, in established democracy, there is a strong society that is actually pushing back and, uh, you know, using the, uh, available public space. I mean, in, in our countries, uh, the, the public space is not even available. Yes, as Latif has said, we have the parallel kind of virtual public space that we’re actually, uh, uh, uh, inventing.

But, but this cannot make up for the, for the real struggles, uh, that, that gonna change things on the, on the ground. So let me pick up on that question and turn to you, Latifa, on these new spaces that are being created. Technology, as you pointed out in your remarks, it’s basically changing the landscape for political communication.

We are seeing new voices engaged in the process. I think Jima Bouadi from CDD Ghana describes youth on the continent as this new democratic uh, group, uh, anti-authoritarian movement that are creating spaces. Uh, for themselves through social media and using technology to make their voices heard in the process.

Now, you mentioned disinformation and hate speech that might emanate from social media spaces. But then again, we also see the good side of this on freedom of, it creates that space for freedom of expression, for people to engage and to participate. So, I’m wondering with this question and this, you know, this challenge that we see on the continent on what sort of the space for the effective use of technology of creating this space for voices to be heard.