Former Executive Vice President of Unilever Ghana and Nigeria, Yaw Nsarkoh, says Africa\u2019s democratic dysfunction is not merely a policy failure.<\/p>\n
According to him, it\u2019s a historical inevitability rooted in the continent\u2019s tragic starting point.<\/p>\n
In an interview on\u00a0JoyNews\u2019 PM Express<\/em>\u00a0following his provocative lecture\u00a0\u201cIniquities of Iniquity in Our Santa Claus Democracy,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he argued that many of Africa\u2019s leaders inherited broken structures, faced uncharted terrain, and became pioneers without predecessors, and it shows.<\/p>\n \u201cYou take someone like Nkrumah, who was he learning from?\u201d Yaw Nsarkoh quizzed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhose mistakes could he study? These people were pioneers. They were navigating terrain with no compass, no predecessors, and no playbook. And we\u2019re still paying for that.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the failure of post-colonial democracy in Africa stems from this fundamental void\u2014an elite class forced to construct nations from the ruins of colonialism, while simultaneously battling for survival in a global order already stacked against them.<\/p>\n \u201cOur democratic project started not with the control of sovereign productive forces but with a flag, an anthem, and a dark-skinned president,\u201d he said sharply, referencing Kabral Blay-Amihere. \u201cThat is not independence.\u201d<\/p>\n For Yaw Nsarkoh, the rot is systemic and historic. \u201cThe colonial hangover is real,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe post-colonial elite simply took over the levers of the state and became new colonialists. They built nothing for the people\u2014they just inherited power and used it to look after themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Yaw Nsarkoh said African democracies were built on \u201cdistorted realities.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike Western democracies that emerged after centuries of capital accumulation and institution building, Africa was asked to adopt a system without the economic and historical foundations to sustain it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe West started modern democracy when they already had wealth to distribute. Africa was forced into a democracy while still crawling from under the wreckage of colonialism. It\u2019s not the same conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n He dismissed attempts to compare Ghana with countries like Singapore as disingenuous.<\/p>\n \u201cThe starting points were different,\u201d he said. \u201cSingapore didn\u2019t have to carry the same weight of colonial distortion. They weren\u2019t starting with GDPs below $3,000 per capita and broken institutional memory. We were.\u201d<\/p>\n He lamented that local government in Ghana has effectively collapsed, and that what passes for democracy is little more than \u201ca public auction for the highest bidder.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we have is not participation\u2014it is transaction,\u201d Nsarkoh said. \u201cCitizens are no longer participants in democracy. They are ballots, bought and sold.\u201d<\/p>\n At the heart of his critique is a deep disillusionment with the elite consensus and how it perpetuates the illusion of progress.<\/p>\n \u201cWe celebrate elections like they are proof of democracy. But what we have is Santa Claus democracy\u2014a system of gifts and giveaways, not accountability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Former Executive Vice President of Unilever Ghana and Nigeria, Yaw Nsarkoh, says Africa\u2019s democratic dysfunction is not merely a policy failure. According to him, it\u2019s a historical inevitability rooted in the continent\u2019s tragic starting point. In an interview on\u00a0JoyNews\u2019 PM Express\u00a0following his provocative lecture\u00a0\u201cIniquities of Iniquity in Our Santa Claus Democracy,\u201d\u00a0he argued that many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":11469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[3645],"class_list":["post-11468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-yaw-nsarkoh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11470,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11468\/revisions\/11470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Disclaimer: The content provided on Fish FM Online is for informational and entertainment purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, we do not guarantee the completeness, reliability, or timeliness of the information presented. Fish FM Online and its affiliates are not responsible for any errors or omissions, nor for any decisions made based on the content available on our platform.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"