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Adebayo Waidi Gbenro Nigeria   Democracy and Democratization in Africa: The Nigerian Experience and what the Future Looks Like Democracy according to Abraham Lincoln is "government of the people by the people and for the people." What a beautiful set of phrase, building up a very beautiful, pregnant, instructive, instructional and institutional sentence. The above definition of democracy by Abraham Lincoln lays the basis for the successful practice of democracy, states what democracy is all about and what democracy stands for. Then to say that we practice democracy in Africa will be wrong picking from the above definition as what we currently have on the continent are attempts at democracy. Wars, political unrests, military governments, poverty and disease that are fallouts from bad and sit-tight civilian governments plague the continent.      I left the writing of this piece to the early hours of Sunday 15th April 2007 the deadline for the submission of essays for this competition because national elections took place on Saturday 14th April 2007 in my country and I wanted to include my experience and perception of what transpired during the election in my write-up. I worked as a volunteer election observer during the yesterday elections for the European Union. The elections on a whole according to Nigerian standard was peaceful with reported pockets of violence: including murders of about six policemen, attacks on electoral officers and political opponents, kidnapping of a prominent politician and stealing of ballot boxes and ballot papers reported from different states of the federation and on whether the elections were free and fair my summation is unequivocally NO, the election cannot be adjudged to be free and fair as the names and parties of some candidates for the elections were conspicuously missing on the ballot papers thereby disenfranchising some candidates at the elections on the one hand and on the other hand many voters were disenfranchised as the picture and party of the candidate they wanted to vote for were missing on the election ballot papers as such so many voters refused to vote . In so many areas many registered voters names could not be located on the voters register of the electoral commission as such they could not vote at the elections even though they were registered voters, in so many areas polling booths were missing as such all the voters from that area could not vote in the yesterday elections, so also in so many areas elections started late as such many registered voters could not vote before elections were closed and votes for such polling booths counted with many voters disenfranchised, many of these disenfranchised voters protested and shouted at the top of their voices to show their dissatisfaction and disappointment. As I am writing this piece election results are being collated, but looking at the buildup to yesterday gubernatorial and states houses of assembly elections the electoral process had being characterized by politically motivated high profile murders, violence and bloodshed, intimidation, persecution, harassment and illegal arrests and detention of political opponents and a multiplicity of unresolved litigations and counter litigations relating to the elections. But even in the face of these daunting obstacles and treat to life, many candidates from the 50 registered political parties are vying for political positions in the April, 2007 elections, while the electorate who have being intimidated, harassed, and on whom violence is being visited upon still came out en-mass to vote for a change, hoping for the best. The most constant thing in life they say is change, then positive progressive change in the life of a people is what they always look forward to. In contemporary times and over the past 3 centuries democracy has proven to be the only medium for the peaceful change of government through periodic free and fair elections. But the question that comes to mind in Africa is that, are elections ever free and fair in Africa? An election that is not free and fair cannot and will never produce the best candidates/choice of the people and it is obvious that a government that never got it mandate from the people will never serve the interest of the people well. The government is always embroiled in a legitimacy crisis, which it tries to salvage through appeasing the people through welfare packages and when this does not work, it resorts to oppression, suppression, intimidation and persecution of its perceived opponents as a means of perpetuating itself in power. In Africa today, several countries are embroiled in internal political crises due to bad governance, sit tight presidents/heads of states and the inability of the system to transit from one government to another through peaceful, and free and fair elections. The most disheartening part of the electoral process in Africa is that youths are used to foment trouble and disrupt elections. Nigeria got her independence on the 1 st of October 1960 and after 47 years of independence the military had ruled the country for 29 years, while civilians democratic rule had being on for only 18 years, this problem came from the fact that on two occasions 1964 and 1983 the incumbent civilian regimes had not being able to conduct peaceful, credible, free and fair elections to usher in new civilian regimes, thereby resulting into a perpetual period of chaos and the destruction of lives and properties. The military then took over government from the civilians on the pretext of restoring order and successfully staging a credible transition to another civilian democratic rule. On the 1 st occasion their transition programme lasted for thirteen years and on the second occasion it took the military sixteen years to handover government to a democratically elected civilian government headed by retired General Olusegun Obasanjo. Upon critical analysis, study of political systems and the experience of military rule it is obvious that there is no better alternative to a democratically elected civilian regime. The example of the United States of America, Britain, France and Canada which are examples of long standing democracies can easily drive home the point that there is no better alternative to democratic civilian rule .The amount of tyranny visited on the people by the successive military governments can only be imagined, but even the civilians have not faired better as they have acted as if they were not responsible to the electorate. The very sweet thing about democracy is that it has very clearly laid out tenets that serves as a guide line for government and the people to follow in their day today life, so also these tenets serve as a yardstick for checking the activities of government and operating a required standard of wellbeing, stability and progress in he state. The bane of African politics had being bad governance; sit tight governments, corruption and lack of responsible and responsive governments. Looking at the tenets of democracy government should be able to provide it people with basics social amenities like good roads, good bridges, pipe borne water, constant electric power, good and cost efficient communication mediums, schools etc., most of these amenities in Africa are poor and inadequate. Many young persons like me have continued to research about, analyse and compare democracies around the world with what we have on ground in our continent, the disparities are very clear .In European and American democracies the countries have continued to progress and their people well catered for, but in Africa the reverse is the case as elections are never free and fair, the electoral commissions are rarely independent as such the possibility of a credible, free and fair election is slim, also the rule of law is never respected and where possible the constitution is arbitrarily changed to pursue self-serving interests of those in government and their collaborators. The case of Zimbabwe is a classical example, so also the tenure elongation attempt of president Obasanjo of Nigeria, where he attempted to amend the constitution to provide for a third term for himself is another classical example of an attempt at an arbitrary change of the constitution of a country in Africa to perpetuate the self-serving interests of an incumbent government. Having read out these whole catalogues of visible problems plaguing the continent it becomes apparent that freedom is never gotten on a platter of gold and according to Thomas Jefferson "Eternal vigilance, is the price of liberty". And until a great mass of the people shall be filled with a great sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained. It then means that our destiny is our hands and the only way that government in Africa can be responsible and responsive is when the people will always stand for what is right and they will not compromise regardless of their poverty level and abject conditions, it is then and only then that we can cast our votes for credible candidates at elections and stand up and follow the elections until results as are announced and our choice evident in the announced results. By then, we would have started the process to true democracy where there is popular participation and majority of people participate in governance. Nigeria is on the match the third time hoping that the current transition from civilian to civilians rule will be successful and the current eight years of democratic experiment and experience would not be scuttled and as civil democratic rule continues the electioneering process and elections would be come efficient, free from rancour and fair to all. Above all, the need to strengthen democratic structures becomes necessary so as to strengthen democracy, better cater for the welfare of people, ensure the independence of electoral commission, the independence of judiciary, ensure the rule of law, ensure the freedom of press, easy access to courts and evolve an egalitarian, progressive and stable country that is slowly and steadily matching ahead. All these are lofty and attainable goals but we the people have agreed that is incumbent on us to stand for what is ours and what is goods, because of the high level of illiteracy and ignorance, poverty and disease in Africa the process of mobilizing of people towards understanding that government should be responsible to the people may not be easy, but surely the process has begun. Among the youths we have taken it upon ourselves to spearhead the process where we will evolve a system that allows us to be good and responsible citizens and makes and ensures that government is good, responsible and responsive. Finally, the sustained attempt by the western democracies to evolve democracy worldwide is laudable and in the best interest of the world. We young persons in Africa have seen how blink the future will be without democracy, as day in day out things continue to move from bad to worse on our continent. We have recognized to need to educate, enlighten and mobilize ourselves towards working for the progress and development of our countries. We have also woken up to the fact that we should be at the vanguard of the change we want see in our countries and on our continent. The process has started, we hope to continue to grow from strength to strength and until we get to the stage where a great mass of the people would be able to understand what democracy is all about, be ready to work and standup for democracy and make sure that our government are democratic; that they are government of the people by the people and for the people.