Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned that democracy risks collapse if it continued to be practiced in its current form without urgent reforms.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Democracy Dialogue of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Obasanjo said that while democracy was originally conceived as “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” it has drifted far from that vision.
“Democracy dies because democracy has refused to be reformed,” he declared. “There are three aspects of democracy that cannot continue to exist the way it was as defined by the American president; government of the people, by the people and for the people.
“In that definition, democracy is meant to be all people’s action. And if democracy will not die and be buried, democracy must be reformed in context, in content, and in practice.”
Obasanjo likened the failures of democracy to a local proverb in his part of the world, “The thing that killed the vegetable is the insect in the vegetable.” He explained that democracy was being destroyed from within due to the way it is currently practiced.
“The thing that is killing democracy and will kill it is the practice of democracy,” he warned. “All the essentials that should be part and parcel of democracy are being ignored or bastardised in such a way that democracy has failed to deliver. And democracy cannot deliver unless it is reformed. If it is not reformed, it will not only fail, it will die and be buried.”
The former president, however, argued that despite its flaws, democracy remains irreplaceable.
“There is not any real substitute for democracy as it was originally designed; government of the people — all the people. What we have now is government of some people, by some people, over all the people,” he lamented.
He further criticised the interpretation of democracy as simply “government of the majority,” insisting that this perspective marginalises minorities and undermines inclusivity.
“And they talk of government of democracy as government of majority. If you talk of government of majority, what do you do with the minority? Then minority is not part of the people?” Obasanjo queried.
The elder statesman’s remarks came amid growing global conversations about the decline of democratic values, weak institutions, and the rise of authoritarian tendencies across various regions.
