CONFERENCE ON POLITICAL TRANSITION AND DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION IN AFRICA

On the 25th of August 2023 the second conference in a series of conferences organized by The Muntu Institute Foundation dubbed: Emerging Scholars Conferences was held at the usual venue, “Librairie des Peuples Noirs” in Yaounde, Cameroon. The Conference that was titled “Political Transition and Democratic Consolidation in Africa” started at exactly 2:30pm prompt with two panelists and a moderator on set. Viz, KIBANG Cedrick ZOU-KOM, a researcher in international relations university of Buea, KOGE Samuel Esambe, Political Scientist in the University of Yaounde II and the Moderator, Nassou Nassourous a political Scientist in the University of Yaounde II. At exactly 2:30PM, the moderator took the floor, introduced the panelist, welcomed the participants and dived in to the introduction of the conference. After introducing the conference, he immediately gave the floor to the first panelist in the name of KIBANG Cedrick.
The theme of Cedrick’s presentation was; Political Transition within the Context of Power alternation in Africa. should the winner take all?. The aim of his presentation was to show the nexus between political transition and conflicts and to explain how democracy can be consolidated in Multi-ethnic societies like those in Africa using successful examples on the continent. His study relied on a critical analysis on existing literature on political transition and conflicts in plural societies. The main argument in his presentation was that, power sharing in plural states like Africa undergoing political transition will lead to the consolidation of democracy and political stability in Africa.
The next panelist of the day to do his presentation was KOGE Samuel. The theme of his presentation was entitled; Political Transition in Ghana’s Fourth Republic: Lessons for Africa’s Democratic Renaissance. This presentation investigated the main trajectories contributing to the peaceful political transition and by extension chatted the democratic path in Ghana’s 4th Republic. To these three main objectives surrounded his presentation. The first was to demonstrate the situation of Africa in line with political transition in Africa. the second was to demonstrate the development of Ghana’s democratic process and the last objective was to demonstrate the lessons Ghana offers to the rest of Africa. To this, the panelist used the Socio-Historic method in making his analysis. He started by presenting Ghana’s post-independence era that was marked by authoritarian rule and Civil-Military alternations that greatly weighed on the country’s political and economic development. However, despite Ghana’s rough path in the post-independence era, with the coming of the wind of change in 1990, Koge Samuel was able to trace Ghana’s democratic progress and consolidation that serves great positive lessons for the rest of the continent. He ended by concluding that, despite Ghana’s democratic progress, the country still faces huge challenges such as corruption and internal party politics which needs to be worked on if Ghana wants to attain a certain level of democratic development.
After the presentations of the panelists, the floor was given to the public for a question-and-answer session. In line with this, four series of questions were taken constituting 4questions each. At exactly 4:30pm, the moderator picked up his microphone in which he thanked the public for coming to participate in the great scientific exercise. He equally thanks the organizing committee for making the conference a success, the technical team that was there to ensure that the conference was diffused online. Finally, the moderator expressed his gratitude to the Executive Director of the Muntu Institute Foundation for this great initiative to give young scholars the opportunity to express their thoughts on diverse social or societal happenings plaguing the development of the African continent today. On this note, the conference ended successfully with a family photo.
Samuel Koge
samuel.koge@muntu.media
Se connecter Inscription