Ghana’s democracy makes significant gains over two decades compared to Nigeria – University Don
A Professor of Political Science at the Lagos State University (LASU) and Human Rights Activist, Prof. Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, says Ghana’s democracy has made significant gains over the last two decade compared to Nigeria, explaining that in Ghana there are concerted attempts at institutional building which is evident in some innovations and incremental improvements in the electoral process and brinksmanship.
Odion-Akhaine noted that in Ghana unlike in Nigeria, the Electoral Commission, the Judiciary, and Security Agencies demonstrated institutional strength through resilience, professionalism, and impartial adjudication of electoral matters.
The Professor stated this while presenting the 103rd Inaugural Lecture of the Lagos State University (LASU), entitled, “Shifting For Good: The Weapon Of Empiricism In The Disorder Of A Third Wave Of Democracy In Africa.”
The Political Scientist said that Ghanaian democracy had grown qualitatively, while Nigeria’s democracy had only grown quantitatively.
“The international community also helped to set up the peace council comprising religious and civic leaders that mediated election conflicts”, he said.
Drawing an allusion from Ghana’s leap with democratic transition that has seen power changing hands in four election cycles between the two leading parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New People’s Party (NPP) since 2000, he noted that Nigeria had only witnessed transfer of power from the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) once in 2015.
Arguing that the Nigerian republic has continued to manifest the ills of the past, he attributed this to four major pathologies.
He revealed that the first, is the absence of free and fair elections, saying that virtually all the elections since 1999 had been rigged in absolute disregard to the democratic method anchored on the principle of consent of the governed.
