A continental wave of political awakening is unfolding across Africa, and leaders who ignore it do so at great historical risk, according to Dr. Chukwuemeka B. Eze, Director of Democratic Futures in Africa at the Open Society Foundations.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday, July 1, Dr. Eze delivered a pointed critique of current power structures on the continent, urging African leaders to recognise that the era of top-down governance is giving way to people-powered, accountability-driven politics.
“Africa is witnessing the emergence of a new political dispensation,” Dr. Eze declared. “This is championed by a new generation of leadership. New political cultures are emerging, and new forms of people power.”
His comments came in the wake of intensifying protests in Togo, where controversial constitutional changes are seen as enabling President Faure Gnassingbé to hold onto power indefinitely. For Dr. Eze, these developments are symptomatic of a deeper transformation rippling through the continent.
Drawing from his experience as former head of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), Dr. Eze said these changes have long been anticipated. “Even while I was still heading WANEP, post Emmanuel Bombande’s era, we had alluded to that. When Mali happened, we were very clear that there are remaining countries that will soon go in the same direction, and we have been vindicated.”
Across Africa, he explained, new forms of activism are taking root, intersectional, intergenerational, and de-tribalized coalitions that transcend traditional party politics or ethnic divisions.
He cited movements like End SARS in Nigeria, Occupy Parliament and Recall Your MP in Ghana, Free Senegal, and other grassroots campaigns in Kenya, South Africa, Sudan, and the Sahel region. These are not movements chasing political power, he explained, but rather ones rooted in socioeconomic justice.
“They are organising around social and economic justice,” he said. “And they are asking a simple question.”
That question, he noted, is driven by a generation long promised that “the future belongs to you.” Now, that generation is demanding to define and shape that future for themselves.
For Dr. Eze, this signals nothing short of a redefinition of democracy in Africa, one led by youths, women, and rural communities who are no longer waiting on state institutions to dictate what democracy should mean.
“The reimagination of democracy, in my opinion, in Africa, can no longer belong to the political elites,” he stated. “The youths are asking critical questions. The women are asking critical questions.”
He stressed that this political consciousness is no longer confined to urban centres. It is widespread, reaching both city dwellers and rural communities alike.
“It’s happening at the very urban centres. It’s happening at the rural centres. They are questioning what democracy is delivering for them.”
One of the central fault lines remains presidential term limits, which Dr. Eze described as a major cause of political unrest across West Africa.
“To that extent, term limits have always been a very controversial issue and a trigger to most of the political instabilities we have had,” he warned.
In closing, Dr. Eze offered a sobering reminder to those in power: “Those in power who fail to read in between the lines… will be on the wrong side of history. That’s why history does not lie.”
