Democracy and the Cycle of Legitimacy Crisis in Africa

Democratic development and legitimacy crises in Africa have become persistent endemic and cyclical. In fact the failure of the colonialists to merge the different ethnic nationalities in Africa into a united political entity no doubt accounts for the fragile and muddy foundations of political and social failure facing the African continent in the process of nation-building and democratic consolidation. Indeed Africa has remained a violent ridden continent in the pyscho-political map of the world in the sense that the continent is stereotypically perceived as synonymous with every political negativity known in the world. Also in real terms poverty diseases civil disturbances revolt insurgence guerrilla warfare domestic rebellion and more recently terrorism have been defining features of Africa and these have been exacerbated by the crisis of legitimacy and of nation-building. Regretfully the wave of democracy which was expected to neutralise the above features has not been able to do so.