Questioning American model for African electoral democracy: insights from the 2023 Nigerian and 2024 US presidential elections
Résumé
America’s electoral democracy is widely regarded as one of the best models for African states even though the United States did not colonise any country on the continent. For example, Britain, Nigeria’s colonial master, at the independence of the latter in 1960, bequeathed it a parliamentary model fashioned after the former’s Whitehall model. However, Nigeria adopted the American presidential model of democracy for its Second Republic which started in 1979 and the country has kept faith with this model. Jettisoning the British parliamentary system, adopting and sticking to the American presidential model since 1979 can be viewed as an affirmation of the notion that the United States offers Nigeria the best democratic model. With very few exceptions, Nigerian presidential elections failed the tests of integrity when compared with elections in the American political system. The 2023 presidential election was criticized locally and globally for entrenching divisions among the people instead of facilitating an orderly transfer of political power necessary for democratic consolidation, especially when evaluated in the lights of the American experience. However, events leading to the 2024 American presidential elections have created a reverse thought on the status of the United States as the model for the Nigerian state to emulate given a wide range of similarities between the two presidential elections. The study reviewed secondary data on the events surrounding the two presidential elections and concluded that Nigeria needs to reevaluate its presidential system to take cognizance of historical experiences.
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