AN ASSESSMENT OF KWASI WIREDU'S DEMOCRACY AND CONSENSUS IN AFRICAN TRADITIONAL POLITICS: A PLEA FOR A NON PARTY POLITY.

Abstract

At the onset of democracy in Africa, it was ordinarily a tool by the colonialist to make Africans believe they were free but this was not the actual case obtainable in reality. Hence, the Africa's drive towards democracy during the past years could be said to be the effect of the sustained Western pressure. This paper seeks to examine Wiredu's idea of consensual democracy through the assessment of his claim about common interest and rational discussion for substantive representation. The paper discovers that democracy as practised in Africa is not what democracy is and recommends that for Africa to progress, there may be the need to jettison what we currently practise as democracy but need to adapt, change, and even in some cases abandon some traditional ideas and behaviours. The methods of critical analysis and reflective argumentation were adopted to pursue the aims of this study.