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 By Chucks Okafor

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has raised fresh concerns about the state of democracy in Nigeria and across Africa, saying the system practised on the continent has left its people trapped.

Obasanjo made the remarks while speaking at the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation Democracy Dialogue 2026 in Bauchi State, where he joined other panellists to discuss the challenges facing democratic governance.

The former president argued that what many African countries call democracy is largely a system inherited from their colonial past rather than one developed from the continent’s own political experience.

“There is no democracy in Africa, but borrowed and forced liberal democracy that has caged Africans,” Obasanjo said.

He questioned whether a distinctly African form of democracy exists, arguing that colonial powers introduced Western liberal democracy to the continent.

“For quite some time, I have been increasingly worried about the performance of democracy in Africa, and indeed, in other regions of the world,” he said.

Obasanjo said his concerns were shared by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, pointing to the organisation’s previous focus on what it described as the “death of democracy”.

He, however, stressed that the discussion should be understood in the context of Western liberal democracy rather than democracy in every part of the world.

According to him, countries such as China would not necessarily accept the argument that their own democratic system is failing because their model differs from the Western approach.

He also cited Switzerland, where elements of direct democracy have long been practised, as another example of a system that does not fit neatly into the Western liberal model being discussed.

Obasanjo said Western liberal democracy is widely practised across Europe, the Americas, much of Southeast Asia and Australia, as well as in many African countries.

His comments came amid continuing debates over the effectiveness of democratic institutions, political representation and governance across Africa.

The former president’s intervention added a wider question to the discussion: whether democracy on the continent should continue largely in its inherited form or evolve into a system more closely shaped by African realities and experiences.