Traditional Akan democracy

[ajaguna]

CHAPTER XII

TRADITIONAL POLITICAL IDEAS

Their Relevance to Development

in Contemporary Africa



KWAME GYEKYE

It is a well-known fact that since the early euphoric days of political independence the politics of many African Nations have been blighted in several ways. The political institutions that were bequeathed to the African People by their colonial masters--institutions that were modeled on those of their rulers--did not function properly. This institutional failure may be explained in several ways. It might be suggested that (i) the African people simply did not have the ability to effectively operate systems of government that were entirely alien to them, (ii) they did not try enough to make a success of those alien institutions, (iii) not having any emotional, ideological or intellectual attachments to those institutions, they had no real desire to operate them, (iv) they lacked certain moral or dispositional virtues or attitudes (such as patience, tolerance, incorruptibility) which would have made for the successful operation of those alien institutions, (v) that the institutions might have worked well enough but for the disruptions of the political processes of the military. The democratic constitutions that have been fashioned by the African peoples themselves, modeled, as they invariable have been, on the European system, have suffered the same fate. The unavoidable consequence of this constitutional failure for many African nations has been political instability, uncertainty and confusion.

In this political uncertainty and confusion, questions are being asked about whether viable political structures can or cannot be forged in the furnace of the African's own traditions of political rule. The positive attitude being evinced toward the traditional system stems from the claim or conviction of a number of people that the traditional system of government did have some democratic features from which a new political system can profit. In light of problems of establishing democratic institutions experienced by African nations since regaining their political independence, any talk of African traditions of government having democratic features will undoubtedly evoke cynicism, even scandal. But the facts of anthropology speak for themselves.

In times of wonder and uncertainty, in times when the definition and articulation of values and goals become most urgent, in times when the search for fundamental principles of human activity becomes most pressing and is seen as the way to dispel confusions and unclarities, the services of the intellectual enterprise called philosophy become indispensable. For philosophy is a conceptual response to the problems posed in any given epoch for a given society. It is therefore appropriate, even imperative, for contemporary African philosophers to grapple at the conceptual level with the problems and issues of their times, not least of which are the problems of government and political stability.

My intention in this paper is to explore the traditional African values and ideas of government with a view to pointing out the democratic features of this indigenous system of government, and to examine whether or not, and in what ways, such features can be said to be harmonious with the ethics of contemporary political culture and hence relevant to developments in political life and thought in modern Africa.

CHIEFSHIP AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY

An inquiry into the status, nature of authority, and role of the chief and the power relationships holding between the chief and the people will disclose certain political values and ideas espoused in the political setting of traditional Africa, for chieftaincy was certainly the most outstanding feature of the African traditional political structure and the linchpin of the political wheel. In pursuit of this inquiry, I shall first provide facts about political institutions and their manner of operation.(169) I shall then investigate the philosophical underpinning of the traditional political institutions. It is hoped that this approach, descriptive as well as conceptual, will provide not only insight into the African traditions of politics, but also an answer to the question of whether or not the indigenous political system exhibited democratic features. For purposes of an in depth study, however, I shall limit my attention to the political thought and practice of the Akan people, the largest ethnic group in Ghana.

Akan Traditional Political Institutions

In this section I am concerned with the political institutions that bear most directly on the relations between the chief and the people, that is, between the ruler and the ruled; in other words, with the institutions that may be said to be crucial as far as the concrete expression of the democratic idea of the will of the people is concerned.

Every Akan town or village is made up of a number of clans (clan: abusua). One of these clans, probably the one whose forefathers founded that town or village, constitutes the royal family from which the chiefs or rulers are elected. Each clan comprises many lineages, while each lineage in turn comprises many individuals linked by blood relationships. Each town or village constitutes a political unit. A great number of such towns and villages formed a paramountcy, a state (oman), such as the Asante state or Akim state, whose head was the paramount chief, the omanhene.

Each town or village had a chief and a council of elders, these elders being the heads of the clans (mbusuapanyin). The chief presided at the meetings of the council. Just as each town or village had a council, so did the state have a council--the state council, described by Danquah as "the great legislative assembly of the nation".(170) The state council, presided over by the omanhene, drew its membership from the chiefs of the towns and villages constituting the state.

Election of the Chief. The chief, who was the political head of an Akan town or village, was elected from the royal lineage by the head of the lineage in consultation with the members of the lineage. It was necessary that the person chosen be acceptable not only to the councilors--who represented their clans--but also to the Asafo company of young men (mmerantee) or `commoners' who were, in effect, the body of citizens. The paramount chief was chosen in the same way, except that his election had to be acceptable to the chiefs of the constituent towns and villages. Thus, never was a chief imposed upon an Akan community, a fact of which the self-imposed military rulers of Africa today must make note.

Now, having been accepted by the people, the chief on the occasion of his formal installation had to take oath publicly before his councilors and the body of citizens to observe the institutions and laws of the town or state. At the installation ceremony a whole series of injunctions were publicly recited before him. These injunctions defined his political authority. The following are typical examples (taken from Rattray(171)) of such injunctions which were declared to him through the chief's spokesman (okyeame):

We do not wish that he should curse us

We do not wish that he should be greedy

We do not wish that he should be disobedient (or, refuse to take advice)

We do not wish that he should treat us unfairly (nkwaseabuo)

We do not wish that he should act on his own initiative (lit.: "out of his own head," that is, acting without reference to the views or wishes of the people)

We do not wish that it should ever be that he should say "I have no time," "I have no time"

It appears that the most important injunction was that the chief should never act without the advice and full concurrence of his councilors, as representatives of the people. Acting without the concurrence and advice of his council was a legitimate cause for his deposition.(172) Thus the chief was bound by law to rule with the consent of the people. Similarly, if a paramount chief abused his power, his subordinate chiefs, who were members of his council, could depose him. It may thus be said that the Akan theory of government was a kind of social contract theory. The injunctions submitted by the people to the chief and accepted by him constituted a kind of contract between them. The chief or king was thus to hold power in trust for the people.

The Chief's Council. The chief's council was the real governing body of the town. The members of this governing council were usually the heads of the various clans. The council was presided over by the chief. The councilors were the representatives of the people, and, as such, had to confer with them on any issue that was to be discussed in the council. That is to say, the councilors, to whom everyone in the town had access, had to seek popular opinion. "The representative character of a councillor," wrote Mensa Sarbah almost a century ago, "is well understood and appreciated by the people.(173) The councillor was obliged to act on the advice and with the concurrence of his people, in the same way as the chief was obliged to act after consultation and with the consent of his councilors, whom he had to summon regularly.

The councilors freely discussed all matters affecting the town or state. And in such an atmosphere of free and frank expression of opinions, disagreements would be inevitable. But in the event of such disagreements the council would continue to listen to arguments until unanimity was achieved with the reconciliation of opposed views. The communal ethos of African culture necessarily placed a great value on solidarity, which in turn necessitated the pursuit of unanimity or consensus not only in such important decisions as those taken by the highest political authority of the town or state, buy also in decisions taken by lower assemblies such as those presided over by the heads of the clans, that is, the councilors. Thus it is clear that every command, every move which was adopted by the chief, had been discussed and agreed upon by his councilors (who must have previously sounded popular opinion). For this reason, any publicity made by the chief's spokesman (okveame) regarding a decree, injunction, command, etc., was made invariably in the name of the chief and his elders (that is councilors). Thus, the okyeame would announce: "Thus say the chief and his elders . . ." (Nana no ne mpanyinfo se . . .(174)).

Having provided a brief account of Akan traditional political institutions and how they operated, we amy now move on to a discussion of the democratic features of these institutions.

Elements of Democracy in Traditional Akan Political Practice

Defining the concept of democracy is not a huge problem. The famous and perhaps the most widely accepted definition is that it is government of the people, by the people, for the people. The centrality of the notion of "the people' is crucial to any definition of democracy. The definition implies, as it must, that the standard by which to judge the democratic nature of a political system is the degree of adequacy allowed for the expression of the will of the people, the extent to which the peoples are involved in decision-making processes. The problem of democracy, however, is simply the problem of how to give institutional expression to the will of the people; how, that is, to make the will of the people explicit in real and concrete terms. In the nations of the Western world, such institutions as the multi-party system, periodic elections, parliaments or congresses, constitutions containing bills of rights, independent judiciary, and others, have been created not only to give expression to the will of the people, but also to guard against the violation of their rights. These are some of the ingredients of the Western democratic political systems.

Now, in what ways, and to what extent, could the Akan political institutions, just described, be said to have provided a means of expressing the will of the people and ensuring popular participation in the political process? Let us explore this question.

The institution of chiefship was definitely the linchpin of the democratic process in an Akan community. For the nature of the political authority of the chief determined the democratic or undemocratic character of the political process. The chief, it was observed, was elected from the royal lineage. Succession to the high office of the chief was, thus, hereditary. And this hereditary element may be said to have imposed a limitation on the choice of rulers, though not necessarily on all other officeholders. Four points may be made to neutralize the political seriousness and effect of this limiting factor.

First, unlike some monarchies in the world where the next occupant of the throne--the heir apparent--was obvious to everyone in the nation, the particular person to be chosen and installed as chief in an Akan community was generally not so obvious. The reason is that there were several eligible men in the royal lineage, and each one of them had just about equal claim to the throne. Thus the king-makers or electors, who were the elders also of the royal lineage, had a number of candidates to choose from. In deciding whom to choose and present to the people, the electors had to exercise the greatest judiciousness and wisdom, for their choice had to be acceptable to the people as a whole. The political history of many an Akan town or state teems with constitutional disputes arising either out of the lack of consensus on the part of the electors themselves regarding the most suitable candidate, or out of the unacceptability of the nominee to the majority of the people. But the point to be noted for the moment is that in choosing the ruler the electors did consider the wishes of the people to whom the nominee was finally to be presented and who had to accept him as their ruler. To the extent that the people had the final say on the suitability of the person chosen to rule them, it could be said that the traditional Akan political structure made it possible for the people to choose their own rulers, even if the initiative was originally taken by some few people.

The second point is that just as the will of the people was of considerable weight in determining the suitability and acceptability of the electors' nominee, so also was it most crucial in determining the continuity, effectiveness and success of a chief's rulership. The `common people' (mmerantee: lit. Young men) constituted themselves into Asafo companies which were organized for social, military and political action. "In recent years," wrote Danquah in 1928, "these `companies' have persistently claimed to possess absolute power to enstool, and chiefly to destool, a chief. This claim seems in a sense to be supported by facts of history and long-established customary practice."(175) Thus even if the people as a whole did not have the power directly to choose their ruler, they had the power directly to remove him or have him removed by the electors. This was another outlet provided in the Akan political system for the expression of the popular will.

The third point is that the limits of the monarchical power were clearly set both by custom and by the series of injunctions publicly recited before the chief and acknowledged publicly by him. These injunctions constitutionally make it impossible, or at least impolitic, for the chief to stubbornly adhere to his views, policies and actions in the teeth of opposition from his councilors and subjects; they also outlawed arbitrary and autocratic government from the Akan political practices. The injunctions as well as the customs so severely curtailed the political authority of the chief that, in the words of R.S. Rattray, a British anthropoligist in the employ of the colonial administration of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) during the first three decades of this century, "the chief in reality was expected to do little or nothing without having previously consulted his councilors, who in turn conferred with the people in order to sound popular opinion."(176) In connection with the political authority of the chiefs, Brad Cruickshank, a Scotsman who also served in the British colonial administration in Ghana between 1834 and 1854, made the following observation: "But among none of those chiefs living under the protection of the (British) Government, is their authority of such consequence as to withstand the general opinion of their subjects; so that, with all the outward display of regal power, the chief is little more than a puppet moved at the will of the people . . . ."(177) Constitutionally, then, the chief was bound to act only on the advice and with the concurrence of his councilors, and consequently, with the popular will. As noted before, arbitrary and autocratic actions by the chief would lead to his deposition.

The fourth point that may be made against the view that the hereditary character of succession to chiefship might (potentially) throttle the real expression of popular will, is that in any assembly, whether in the council of the chief, in the palace of the chief--where general assemblies of all the people usually took place--or in the house of a councillor (that is, head of a clan), there was free expression of opinion. No one was hindered from fully participating in the deliberations of the councils or public (general) assemblies and thus from contributing to the decisions of these constitutional bodies. It is thus pretty clear that the Akan traditional political structure allowed for many to participate in making decisions regarding the affairs of the community. "Anyone--even the most ordinary youth--," wrote Cruickshank, 'will offer his opinion or make a suggestion with an equal chance of its being as favorably entertained as if it proceeded from the most experienced sage."(178)

The observations made by Rattray about the democratic character of the politics of the Ashanti, a subsection of the Akan people, are worth noting:

Nominally autocratic, the Ashanti constitution was in practice democratic to a degree. I have already on several occasions used this word `democratic', and it is time to explain what the term implies in this part of Africa. We pride ourselves, I believe, on being a democratic people and flatter ourselves that our institutions are of a like nature. An Ashanti who was familiar alike with his own and our [that is, British] Constitution would deny absolutely our right to apply this term either to ourselves or to our Constitution. To him a democracy implies that the affairs of the Tribe (the state) must rest, not in the keeping of the few, but in the hands of the many, that is, must not alone be the concern of what we should term "The chosen rulers of the people," but should continue to be the concern of a far wider circle. To him the state is literally Res Publica; it is everyone's business. The work of an Ashanti citizen did not finish when by his vote he had installed a chief in office. . . . The rights and duties of the Ashanti democrats were really only beginning after (if I may use a homely analogy) the business of the ballot-box was over. In England, the government and House of Commons stand between ourselves and the making of our laws, but among the Ashanti there was not any such thing as government apart from the people.(179)



It may be noted that the concept of the divine right of kings which was the basis of the political authority of the Stuart monarchs of 17th century England, was never put forward or pursued by the Akan states. On the contrary, the facts do indicate that they had created political systems that not only made real despotism well-nigh impossible, but also gave due recognition to the wishes of the governed. In all this, the Akan people were institutionally expressing, in their own fashion, certain basic ideas of democracy. First and foremost was the idea that the government of a people must be responsive to the wishes of the people. We have noted that although the chief was not directly elected by all the people, the electors in their choice had to consider the wishes of the people; we have also noted that the chief had to govern in accordance with the popular will. Again, the allowance made for the expression of opinion on public matters enabled the people of an Akan community, or many of them at any rate, to be involved in decision-making at all levels. Public criticisms of government policy and action were inevitable in a system which allowed for the frank expression of opinion. Criticisms of government policy and action were made by people as individuals--in accordance with their own light, not as members of "political parties" which did not exist.

The political phenomena that approximated to "political parties" of the type that obtains in Western countries were the groupings of men and women resulting from disagreements and disputes that emerged--and not infrequently--generally over the nomination or election of a chief, but over other matters as well. But, though such groupings were political in terms of their aims, they could hardly be described as political parties. For their aims were ad hoc and ephemeral, and they were concerned not so much with the broad political issues of society as with the issue of the person nominated or chosen to hold the office of the chief. For this reason such disputes and oppositions never led to ideological rifts, and were submerged before long by the waves of the characteristic demands of solidarity

Because of the nonexistence of political parties, some scholars have supposed that African political culture lacked the concept of opposition. However, the existence both of disagreements, divisions and groupings along political lines in the deliberations of the traditional councils and assemblies as well as the pursuit of consensus gives the lie to this supposition. Consensus, along with reconciliation, appears in fact to have been a political virtue vigorously pursued in Akan traditional councils and assemblies, and to have become an outstanding feature of the process of reaching decisions. In all kinds of deliberations the aim was to achieve consensus and reconciliation, and this, inevitably, would prolong meetings; but it would allow for argument and exchange of ideas. Consensus logically presupposes dissensus (that is, dissent), the existence of opposed or different views; for it was the opposed views that were, or needed to be, reconciled. If there were no opposition, it would be senseless to talk of reaching a consensus and reconciliation. This is a conceptual truth. Thus, we are forced to conclude that in the traditional Akan politics there was opposition without an organized political party in opposition. Whether or not Akan or African political culture would have in time evolved its own brand of the party system of politics, no one can say for sure. Colonialism slammed the doors against such a possible evolution.

Consensus, as a procedure for arriving at political decisions, was born of the pursuit of the social ideal or goal of solidarity. The concept was thus a feature of the Akan communalist philosophy. It was considered as vital to the Akan conception and practice of democracy; and not without justification. The pursuit of consensus allows for an individual input; it promotes mutual tolerance, patience and an attitude of compromise, all of which are necessary for the democratic practice, in which one voluntarily has to abandon or modify one's own position in the face of more persuasive arguments of the other or others. The pursuit of consensus thus makes for compromise in which the expression of an individual's will becomes effective to a degree and is not cavalierly set aside. Consensus must, therefore, be considered a democratic virtue; it is certainly an ideal for any democratic decision-making assembly. I must note at this point that in Africa the facts about the democratic political practice of the Akan people are by no means idiosyncratic to them alone.(180)

Conceptual Expression of Democracy

In the foregoing section an account was given of the Akan political practice. There is no denying, however, that political institutions take their rise from, and are moulded by, a political theory or philosophy. That is to say, underlying political institutions and political practice is a political theory, a philosophy, even though such philosophy may not have been fully articulated or worked out. My intention in this section, therefore, is to attempt to indicate and examine the ideas underpinning the Akan political practice and how these ideas were formulated. The Akan ideas of politics, as of everything else, were expressed, at the conceptual level, in proverbs and sayings, folk tales, artistic symbols, rituals, and so on.(181) The use of such sources, however, would in fact involve one in an exercise in conceptual ordering, in the logic of ideas, an exercise which is not easy to execute. The well-known Akan proverb:

One head does not go into council (ti koro nko agyina)

expresses the political value of consultation or conferring, the idea that deliberation by several heads (that is, minds) on matters of public concern is always better. The proverb (or fragment) says implicitly that the chief cannot or should not alone deliberate and adopt a policy or an action that affects others, for he is (or has) one head. Though the fragment may not immediately advocate a democratic practice, it certainly repudiates autocracy or despotism--which is thus defined here as "one head going into council". This fragment is in fact the logical consequence of another one, namely,

Wisdom is not in the head of one person

(nyansa nni onipa baako ti mu).

If wisdom is not in one person's head, then one cannot, or should not, go into council, where the exercise of wisdom is required. Since, as the fragment clearly states, every person has some ability to think--and to think about, in this case, matters affecting the whole community--it would be senseless or presumptuous for one person to arrogate to himself or herself the right to think or deliberate for others. The fragment implies, then, that matters concerning the whole community ought to be thought about by all the members of the community or by as many of them as possible.

But let us explore this fragment a bit further. The fragment means (1) that other individuals may be equally wise and capable of producing equally

good, if not better, ideas and arguments; (2) that one should not, or cannot, regard one's own intellectual position as final or unassailable or beyond criticism, but must expect it to be evaluated by others; and (3) that, in consequence of (2), one should be prepared to modify or even abandon one's position should one's own ideas or arguments be judged unacceptable or implausible by others. The fragment underlines not only the need for, but also the acceptance, of criticism and compromise; just as it points up the need to respect the views of others. In the political context, it enjoins rulers to be undogmatic and tolerant of the views of others. In consequence, the fragment, when logically fleshed out, recommends the choice and practice of consensus in political decision-making.

There are fragments specifically about the limited nature of the power of the ruler, and the power relations that hold between him and the governed, such as:

(i) If a chief reprimands (rebukes, punishes) you for doing something, he does so by the authority of the citizens (ohen bedi wo kasa a, na efi amanfoo)

(ii) It is when the state kills you that the chief kills you (oman kum wo a, na ohen kum wo)

(iii) It is when a chief has good councilors that his reign becomes peaceful (ohen nya ahotrafo pa a, na ne bere so dwo)

(iv) There are no bad rulers, only bad advisors (ahen bone nni baabi. Na asafohene bone na wowo baabi).

Fragments (i) and (ii) express the idea that the ruler (that is, the chief) acts only on the advice of, or with the concurrence of, or by the authority of, the people. Fragment (iii) underlines the dependence of the ruler on the advice of his councilors, that is, the representatives of the people, for satisfactory and peaceful government. The implications of fragments (i) - (iii), just stated, are summed up in fragment (iv). The thought expressed in fragment (iv) is that theoretically, that is, within the framework of the constitution, there would be no bad rulers, since the ruler would be expected to rely solely on the advice and guidance of his advisors. The presumption is that the advice of the councilors and other lieutenants would be expected to be good, proceeding, as it would, from many heads, rather than from one head, that is, the ruler's.

But the thought expressed in the fragment is only theoretically plausible, and may in practice be false, insofar as it is possible for the ruler to set aside the views or arguments of his advisors. The thought of the fragment expresses a political ideal, but the realization of the ideal would depend very much upon the character, personality and disposition of the ruler: a stupid, arrogant and strong-willed ruler may set aside even the good advice of his lieutenants--to his own chagrin, however. The realization of the ideal would depend also on the extent to which the councilors and the people as a whole are prepared to insist that the ruler bow to the popular will. Thus, the thought of the fragment expresses a political value the pursuit of which would give an effective role to the will of the people in the political process and ensure democracy.

An emblem embossed in silver or gold on top of a staff often held by the chief's spokesman at public ceremonies depicts an egg in a hand. The saying that goes with it is that holding political power is like holding an egg in one's hand: if you press the egg hard, you break it; but if you do not hold it securely enough, or if you hold it too loosely, it drops and breaks. The symbol expresses an important political thought, which is that a ruler should not oppress his subjects or do anything that could cause them to revolt or rebel, an action that could in turn lead to political chaos or the possible break-up of his kingdom. On the other hand, if the appropriate and judicious measures, policies and actions are not adopted as required by particular circumstance, if the firmness and resoluteness that a situation demands are not shown by the ruler, his indecision, supineness and lack of both political will and strength of purpose will equally wreck his political authority. The symbol is not intended to give the impression that the ruler's position is one of a tangle or paradox; it is intended, rather, to express an important fact about the judicious or prudent use of political power: neither excessive action nor indolent inaction, is a true mark of rulership. Political power or authority should be exercised when it should, and wisely.

CONCLUSION

In this paper some evidence and argument have been deployed to show that ideas and values of politics such as popular will, free expression of opinion, consensus and reconciliation, consultation and conferring, the trusteeship, and hence limited, nature of political power--all of which are ingredients of the democratic idea--were to be found in the African traditions of politics and that they are, thus, by no means alien to the indigenous political cultures of African peoples. The fact, however, is that these political values have not been allowed to affect and shape the contours of modern African politics. The consequences of this neglect of traditional political ideas and values have not been palatable: authoritarian politics and illegitimate seizure of political power are the order of the day. These are features of modern African politics which can hardly be said to derive from African traditions. And so it is that the search for democracy in post-colonial Africa has been an odyssey, a long and arduous journey the end of which is not yet in sight, but still in the womb of time. Resorting to the indigenous values and ideas of politics could be a redemptive approach.

To argue that traditional values and ideas be brought to bear on modern political life and thought however, is not necessarily to exalt those values and ideas; it is only to point up their worthwhileness. The Akan Fragment, "the ancient (or the past) has something to say" (tete wo bi ka), implies not that the ancient has said everything that needs to be said and can therefore provide us modern people with all the values, ideas, institutions, etc., that we may need, but that if we were objectively to examine the ancient system of values, we will find some values that would be relevant to our modern circumstances. But here lies the all-important question: By what criteria are we to accept or reject traditional values, attitudes, ideas, and institutions? How, that is, do we judge that the legacy of the past is or is not worth being given some attention or place within the scheme of things of the present?

There are, I think, at least two important criteria for judging the relevance or otherwise nonrelevance of values, ideas and institutions of the past to the circumstances of the present. These are (i) the fundamental nature of those pristine values and attitudes, and (ii) the functionality of the ideas and institutions in the setting of the present. There surely are values that are so fundamental to human existence that they can, for that reason, be said to transcend particular generations or epochs. Such fundamental and abiding values must be related to, or generated by, considerations of basic, sedimented human desires, wants, hopes, ideals, and sentiments. A present age must ask whether it can abandon such basic human values and continue to exist as a human society. An age or generation that does not, for instance, pursue the ethic of respect for human life, and where wanton killings of human beings are the order of the day, can not survive as a human society for any length of time. Thus, it is the basic, abiding character of certain values cherished and pursued in the past that makes those values relevant and acceptable to a later age.

I am aware, however, that the view I am urging here is clearly at variance with that of the moral relativist who would have no truck with a conception of fundamental or abiding or lasting values. Yet I believe that the possibility of human society is grounded on the reality of a fundamental core of human values the observance of which makes for the continual existence, stability, and smooth functioning of society. For instance, it cannot be seriously denied that there are certain things which all members of a society want as rational beings. (How to achieve, or whether we shall achieve, all our wants is a different matter.)

The relevance or irrelevance of ideas and institutions of the past to the present would be determined also by their functionality: that is, whether or not they can play any meaningful or efficacious role in the present scheme of things and so be conducive to the attainment of the goals and vision of the present. Ideas and institutions that have stood the test of time and have proved their worth can be considered suitable for the purposes of the present; otherwise they must be regarded as obsolescent and must, consequently, be jettisoned, to be replaced by new ones. It is the profound appreciation of the efficacy and resilience of values, ideas, and institutions of the past that recommends them to the present age, and underpins the significance of such ebullient and euphoric utterances as "our traditions of democracy", "our traditions of humanism", "our traditions of hospitality", and so on. All such traditions are, of course, not a sudden emergence; they are the ideas and values that have been hallowed by time and function. This, in fact, is involved in the meaning of tradition.

Now, against the background of the views expressed in the immediately preceding paragraphs, I shall briefly examine some of the ideas and institutions of the traditional African political system in terms of their relevance or irrelevance to the modern setting.

It must be borne in mind from the outset that the conditions in which the indigenous democratic institutions were operated many decades ago were different from what they are now with the emergence both of large political communities (that is, nations) and of the ideas of a central government that controls the political power. The business of government in the modern world is more complex, more ramifying than of yore; we cannot go about such business in the way it was done by our forefathers. The reason is that certain features or aspects of the traditional conceptions of things, but by no means all, may be disharmonious with the modern situation.

For instance, the idea of a hereditary head of state, who is not a mere figurehead but wields (or wants to wield) effective political power as in the traditional political setting, will not be hospitable in a modern political community in which several individuals or groups compete for political power. Also, the concept of a regal lineage from which the chief or head of state was chosen is impossible to entertain and apply within the context of a large modern political community constituted by a medley of ethnic groups. Each of the constituent ethnic groups would want the head of state to come from within it, a desire that would, if not fulfilled, almost invariably engender political wrangles, machinations and secessions. Ethnicity has been the bane of the party system of politics in post-colonial Africa: party affiliations have generally been on ethnic lines and ethnicity is known to have played some role in military coups. It is thus undeniable that in the evolution of the democratic system in a large political community some of the traditional political institutions would be a hindrance. Such institutions or practices must therefore be expunged.

On the other hand, there were others, to be sure, that would facilitate democratic political development: the town, village or state councils served as instruments of political participation and involvement; ideas of free expression of opinion, popular will, consent, consensus; the fact that wealth was not a basis for membership in the traditional councils--so that both the rich and the poor found themselves there--all these and others discussed earlier are conducive to the evolution of democratic practice even in a large modern political setting.

It must be noted that both colonial and post-colonial governmental systems in Africa created a distance between the government and the governed. This, in turn, engendered attitudes of unconcern and insensitivity to the affairs of the state on the part of the governed. Consequently, the general attitude of the citizen was that it was possible to injure the state without injuring oneself, an attitude that opened the floodgates of bribery, corruption, carelessness about state property or state enterprises, and other unethical or antisocial acts. Traditional ideology, however, positively maintained that any injury done to the community as a whole directly injures the individual. Thus the traditional system evoked sentiments of personal commitment to the community which the modern African state has yet to create in its citizens. These observations undoubtedly suggest the conviction that it is sensible, even imperative, to revivify those of our ancestral political values and attitudes which are evidently relevant to developments in the democratic politics of the modern world.

The upshot of this discussion then, is that the ideas and values in the traditional system of government must be thoroughly and critically examined and sorted out in a sophisticated manner. Those ideas that appear to be unclear and wooly, but which can nevertheless be considered worthwhile, must be explored, refined and trimmed and given a modern translation. Thus what needs to be done, in pursuit of democracy and political stability, is to ingenuously find ways and means of hammering those autochthonous democratic elements on the anvil of prudence, common sense, imagination, creative spirit and a sense of history into an acceptable and viable democratic form in the setting of the modern world. When this task is done, the traditional ideas--some of them at any rate--will be found to be of immense value in the contemporary socio-political developments in Africa. Our culture may yet bring us the much-needed political salvation.