From Political Transitions to Good Governance in Africa: Resolving the Socio-Economic Roots of Insecurity in the 21st Century

Democracy retuned to sub-Saharan African region1 in 1990s after almost three decades of authoritarian rule by the different shades of regimes that either overthrew or took over from the initial democratic administrations that the colonial powers handed the institutions of government to at the time of their departure from the continent in late 1950s until the mid-1960s.Since democratic governance returned to Africa in the 1990s, the nature of governance in the region has attracted critical debates by scholars and political analysts who were either skeptical about democracies in Africa or concerned about the negative impacts of their style of governance. It should be noted that governance challenges are causing rising concern from Cairo to the Cape because of the consequences of bad governance; manifesting in corrupt practices, which in turn, create aggravated development problems and throw up security threats to human lives in Africa, This state of affair consequently raises some critical questions about the complementarity of democracy and development in Africa. It also further raises serious concern about whether democratic government could survive and consolidate in the region where politics leads to deprivation and mismanagement of state resources appears to be taking firm ischolar_mains over the principles of social contract responsibility, government accountability and transparency in governance. Finally, what is the explanation for bad governance in almost all the African countries? Or better still, what accounts for 'business as usual' syndrome and how can this governance albatross be tamed and/or eradicated?