Vice President Mahama writes book on democracy in Africa

The Vice President, John Dramani Mahama is writing a book on the future of democracy in Africa.

Excerpts from the book have been published on the US site theRoot.com.

The Vice Presidential spokesman, John Jinapor has meanwhile confirmed to ghanabusinessnews.com on the phone Monday December 20, 2010 that indeed, the Vice President is writing a book, but the details would be made known in due course.

In the published excerpts he captures the current situation on Cote d’Ivoire. He writes “The current political development in Cote d’Ivoire, and the manner in which it will be resolved, will serve as either a clear indication of how tenuous the democratic process still is on the African continent, or a joyous testament to how far the continent has traveled in its promotion of peace and advancement.”

“I’m sure that because many people, especially in the Western world, may still not have faith that democracy can actually work on the African continent, it didn’t come as a surprise to some that the results of the Ivorian Electoral Commission were not recognized by Laurent Gbagbo’s incumbent government and not followed by the requisite concession and transfer of power,” he says.

Vice President Mahama write, “Politics in Africa, for centuries it seems, have been a violent game of domination in which the residents of any given region are nothing more than pawns, warm bodies to be subjugated or slaughtered or, in earlier centuries, sold and enslaved. As, one after the other, African nations won their independence from colonization, a sense of hope and a feeling of confidence took hold of the continent. Finally the people of Africa would be free to determine their own destiny. They would be free to partake of all the pride and progress that being sovereign seemed to promise.”

On some of Africa’s celebrated heroes, he writes,  “Yet before cartographers had even finished documenting the names of the newly independent nations, all the leaders who had been celebrated and held up as heroes — like Kwame Nkrumah, Sylvanus Olympio, Patrice Lumumba — were either overthrown or assassinated. The era that followed should have, and so easily could have, been one of steady development and economic stability. Instead, for decades, the continent turned into a garish kaleidoscope of dictators, coups d’etat, prisons overflowing with opposition leaders, and people fleeing under cover of darkness to live in foreign lands as refugees and political exiles.”

John Mahama has a post-graduate Diploma in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana and when the book is completed, he would be the first Ghanaian sitting Vice President to have written a book.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi