A Consensual Democracy and the African Traditional Society: Promoting Africanness

The study examines contemporary democracy and consensus in African traditional society and the approaches to promoting Africanness. The study presents the arguments around consensual democracy as a “better means of the decision-making process than majoritarian democracy in traditional African life and governance”. The arguments are that consensus protects the interests of minorities while consensual democracy allows for meaningful representations. Contrary to popular opinion, this research contends that the issues or problems to representative democracy highlighted do not inherently undermine representative democratic governance and make the choice by consensus a viable form of decision-making in contemporary African society. The goal of this chapter is not to argue for majoritarian democracy as a viable position, the study is rather focused on a critical examination of the arguments for consensual democracy in Africa. The study contends that, at a given degree of discourse, the concept of consensus shares some characteristics with traditional or political democracy and faces similar limitations. The study concludes that theoretically, democracy and consensus are not inherently exclusive. However, the introduction of democracy throughout Africa faces the obstacles of political realities, the need for a step-by-step strategy, and, finally, a gap between formal democratic growth and social engagement. African democracy must be established within these contexts to promote Africanness. The study recommends that the African model of political democracy must be anchored in the tradition of an inclusive society characterized by several inequities to promote Africanness.