FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY, AND DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY: AN AFRICAN NORMATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Freedom, responsibility, and democratic accountability are political and philosophical constants in a plethora of discussions concerning the growth of contemporary Africa. The democratic models that were inherited from colonial legacies are liberal and are characterized primarily by individual choice and rights. These models neglect the communitarian moral fabric that is common among African Societies. It is premised on this that this paper aims to interrogate the drawbacks of western liberal democratic model in leading towards the expression of the African’s moral vision of human agency and accountability. The paper shall draw from African normative frameworks such as Ubuntu and Omolúàbí to reposition freedom on a pedestal where it shall not be looked upon as being isolated from others but rather as a moral condition that is contingent on a responsible participation in the community life of one’s society. This is achieved through hermeneutic and comparative philosophical methodologies. Hence, the paper will engage key African thinkers in the likes of Gyekye, Mentiki, and Wiredu to explore alternative standards of democratic accountability founded on the communal character of the traditional African society. Consequently, the paper argues that the erosion of accountability in multifarious African democracies is as a result of the disembedding of political freedom from moral responsibility. Therefore, the paper concludes that Africa ought to transcend procedural elections, but not dispose of it, towards cultivating societies where to be free is to be answerable both to the self and to the community. Hence the paper provides a basis for reimagining democracy as not merely a political arrangement but rather as a moral practice.