Democracy or Deception” There’s something Africa knows too well. It hangs in the air, etched on every wall. It’s not just poverty. It extends beyond simple corruption. Exploitation is the root of all evils. This situation continues to deny Africa its rightful rights and democracy. The exploitation does not stem from the West alone; it also shares in the corrupt practices of local political leaders who have betrayed the basic tenets of democracy.
Truthfully, under the guise of democracy, Africa has seen the worst dictators, who have ruined it to ashes. When it comes to democracy in Africa, the question is no longer ‘to be or not to be’. The real issue lies in confronting the elephant in the room: a system built to look democratic but designed to exploit.
Yes, it was the colonial power that cut into the very flesh of Africa and sliced it along fragile ethnic lines regardless of their history and humanity. But it’s actually the “facade democracy” that became the puppet of the West and dances to its tune. Resultantly, these so-called legitimate democratic heroes become an illegitimate tool of the neoliberal West to push forward its vile economic designs to exploit these nascent states. While these African heroes are celebrated abroad, their own nations bleed.
Democracy or Deception
As Noam Chomsky already warned, “Neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy across the planet.”
Who remembers Robert Mugabe? Robert Mugabe was a symbol of liberation and a true panafrican at heart. He is a well-known tyrant in the history of Africa. The man who owned the luxurious 24-room palace in Zimbabwe while its people were living in extreme poverty. A brutal coup ousted Mugabe when he attempted to designate his wife as his political heir.
Omar al-Bashir’s tyrannical regime stands as a brutal example. Under his command, the abject Sudan was crushed with violence and fear. He staged multiple rigged elections to cloak his dictatorship in the illusion of democracy—violating fundamental human rights to satisfy his unrelenting thirst for power. As Shelley once wrote, “Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whate’er it touches. Soon, Omar’s fate was sealed in 2019 under mass protests. The people of Sudan overthrew him because they lost their faith in democracy.
Meles Zenawi ruled Ethiopia under the guise of democracy, yet his rule was far from just. Elections were choreographed performances, with opposition voices silenced before they could speak. His government perfected the art of control—using fear, surveillance, and economic favouritism to crush dissent. Under Zenawi, votes became weapons, and favouritism and currency were traded only among the elite. Democracy, in his hands, was a beautifully written lie.
Nic Cheeseman, a democracy expert, warns that
“If current trends continue, the continent’s future will be characterised by a set of entrenched authoritarian states sitting side by side with a set of nascent democracies.”
Perhaps the solution lies elsewhere. Nascent democracies are never the answer. This is why Burkina Faso chooses its own destiny by appointing Ibrahim Traoré – an unapologetic African leader who stands tall and challenges the hegemony of France. We won’t take it anymore!
Unlike others, he did not come with ballots but with boots. A coup, but one wrapped not in hunger for power, but for truth. In the dust of broken promises and hollow democracies, Traoré’s rise felt like a long-awaited messiah. He didn’t stage his authority with 24-room palaces or Mercedes-Benz processions; rather, he stood before people with clarity, speaking not as a ruler but as a soldier of the soil.
While others hoarded wealth, he announced free education because he understood that ignorance is the perfect cage and knowledge the sharpest weapon against neocolonialism. He didn’t wait for the West’s approval to act; he challenged it head-on. France, long intoxicated on the minerals of Burkina Faso, was denied access. The gold, the land, the rare earths—no longer a free lunch for the civilised world.
Traoré may not wear democracy’s mask, but he touches something deeper: dignity, defiance, and the fire to reclaim what was always theirs. Whether history will remember him as a true liberator or autocrat remains to be seen. But in a continent where democracy has too often been a lie whispered in Western boardrooms, Traoré is like the Che Guevara of Africa.
To wrap it all up, yes, Africans lost their faith in democracy. But maybe Africa isn’t meant to be democratic. Its history shows that it was a tribal society. The colonists came and looted it, left, but soiled their own seeds. The institutions are like a house of cards: toppled by a single gust of greed. The democratic leaders are just puppets drunk on their own thirst for power. The nation state still reels under the terror regimes, poverty and grotesque governance.
What’s left is a lingering hope—that maybe democracy is not the answer to all of Africa’s woes. Africa needs a hero like Mandela, a fierce fighter like Traoré, and an unshakable conviction that defies the West and safeguards Africa unshakeable needs a vision that does not bow before Western approval but rises with the voice of its people—one that bravely declares, ‘Africa is for Africans.’
