Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting)

The core thesis of the book is that Africa continues to fail even as the rest of the world propels into a future that will be shaped by technology innovations. Africa may be forgotten - like the lost tribes in the Amazon -if it is not able to jump on to the departing train. Closing the gap will become more difficult as technology evolves.

The continent can leverage technology to catch up with the rest of the world. This was evident in how the continent used mobile telephony to leapfrog traditional fixed phone line infrastructure and continues to innovate with the technology. In fact, some African countries are few years ahead of the United States in terms of mobile banking. Africa can repeat similar successes by rebuilding the foundations and pillars of this falling house.

This submission, which is Chapter 2 of the book, argues that Africa can’t make sustained progress without enthroning the principles of liberal democracy and return political power to the people. Africa can leverage a ubiquitous technology to improve election integrity. This proposal will demand boldness and confidence from the continent’s leaders.

This chapter is still a work-in-progress.

Page 2 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting)

Chapter 2 Power of the People

Stifled Voices Fight Back Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is layered with multiple allegories. To the casual reader, it is the story of British colonialists’ incursion into the Igbo-speaking region of Nigeria in the 1890s and the resultant disruptions to the society’s fundamental structures. From the first line in the book, the protagonist, Okonkwo, is presented as a strong character determined not to be hindered by his father’s perceived weakness. His insecurities predisposed him to overt displays of courage and self-confidence. Failing to understand the white man’s ways, especially their Christian religion, Okonkwo feared that these strangers would decimate his community’s way of life. Despite the Igbo reputation for hospitality to strangers, the colonialists’ authoritarian approach left little room for dialogue or negotiated accommodations. Their edicts showed no respect for Igbo culture and institutions, and their dictatorial style conflicted with their hosts’ republican nature. As a consequence, this impasse effectively foreclosed peaceful co-existence. Fearing that his society would succumb to a foreign god, Okonkwo, as usual, rose to provide leadership to address this threat. A series of events culminated in his premedicated murder of an emissary of the colonial District Officer; a significant miscalculation. Okonkwo erroneously assumed that his bold action would galvanize his people for war. However, realizing that they were not strong enough to fight their colonial masters, the community abandoned Okonkwo to his fate. As the old Igbo adage cautions; ‘a young boy who prematurely investigates the cause of his father’s death may contend with the same fate.’ Their lack of support broke Okonkwo’s spirit and, rather than face further humiliation from the colonialists; he did the unthinkable by committing suicide.

Page 3 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting)

Okonkwo’s suicide baffles many readers of Things Fall Apart, as it is seemingly inconsistent with the man they saw battle many of life’s challenges to become one of his community’s most respected leaders. Okonkwo’s bravery was never in doubt; indeed, it was always on display. When the ‘Oracle’ demanded the death of a slave boy under his care, Okonkwo stoically obeyed. Although a trusted elder cautioned him, ‘That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death,’ Okonkwo still struck the fatal blow to demonstrate to his community that he was invulnerable to emotion. How does such a man of courage and self-confidence choose suicide as a way out? As a High Chief, Okonkwo was aware of the ethical and theological definitions of suicide in Igbo tradition. Considered an irredeemable abomination and a ‘bad death’ because it broke the cycle of reincarnation, the suicide meant that Okonkwo was buried ‘like a dog’ instead of being accorded a funeral befitting of one of his community’s greatest warriors. What great pain pushed him to such a decision? The logical answer is despondency. Faced with the colonialists’ draconian powers, Okonkwo felt voiceless, powerless, caged and defeated. He probably crossed the point where the pain of death paled in comparison to the travails of life under authoritarian control. This despondency was perhaps similar to what made Emiliano Zapata Salazar, a leader in the peasant revolution in Mexico (1910-1920), to conclude that it is ‘better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees?’ Same for Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, whose self-immolation in December 2010, triggered the Arab Spring; a series of anti-government protests that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s and led to the toppling of dictatorial governments in the region. There is no evidence that Okonkwo hoped his suicide would trigger an African Spring against colonialism. Rather, his act was more a realization that he had lost his political voice and influence in his community and could not countenance living like a slave in his father’s land. His emotions were more aligned with those of his ancestors who, in 1803, on St. Simons Island in the United States of America, chose mass suicide over slavery. In what has become known as the Igbo Landing, about 75 slaves who were chained together onboard a coastal slave-vessel, the York, rose in rebellion, overpowered their captors and in the process grounded the ship in the Dunbar Creek and drowned. How many people worldwide know the asphyxiating feeling that accompanies a lack of political voice or influence? Like Okonkwo and Bouazizi, many Africans see the impotence of being unable to impact their socio-economic and political realities. Likewise, for the Tipu Sultan of Mysore (1750 - 1799) who, in his exasperation with hostile Indian rulers and the British East India Company, suggested that ‘it is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.’ These feelings motivated Africa’s

Page 4 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) struggle for independence in the 1960s. How has life changed in these African communities since their independence from colonial rule? Did the societies transition their extractive institutions to inclusive ones, or was it merely a transition from white- skinned rulers to black-skinned dictators? While not quite Hobbesian, life in Africa in the second decade of the twenty-first century is still ‘poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ According to the World Bank1, global poverty declined from 1.9 billion people or 36 percent of the world population in 1990 to 0.65 billion or 8.6 percent in 2020. In the same period, poverty transitioned from being Asian to becoming African. The World Bank projects that by 2030, 87 percent of people living in abject poverty will be on the African continent. This dreadful picture is the same for healthcare measures. According to the World Health Organisation2, although the global under-five mortality rate dropped from 93 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 38 in 2018, sub-Saharan Africa continues to skew global progress with the highest rates at 76 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018. Anyone born today in Africa can expect to live, on average, for 62 years, a decade less than the average life expectancy for the rest of the world. Similarly, although the deadliest conflicts in 2020 are all outside Africa (in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen)3, armed violence is still the continent’s biggest challenge.4 As of 2020, 15 out of 54 countries in Africa are involved in a war or embroiled in post-conflict tensions. Broad swaths of the Sahel region of West African are under the effective control of terrorist organizations with the quality of life in those parts still brutish and almost medieval. Like Cassius in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar,’ Africans understand that these challenges exist not because providence sealed their fate in the stars; instead, they result from the prevailing socio-economic and political institutions. The question in these African hearts is similar to that Cassius posed to Brutus: Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about

1 World Bank. 2020. Poverty. [ONLINE] Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty. [Accessed 3 November 2020]. 2 World Health Organisation. 2020. Child Mortality. [ONLINE] Available at: www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/topics/topic-details/GHO/child-mortality. [Accessed 3 November 2020] 3 Dupuy, Kendra & Siri Aas Rustad (2018) Trends in Armed Conflict, 1946–2017, Conflict Trends, 5. Oslo: PRIO. Available at: https://www.prio.org/Publications/Publication/?x=11181 4 Relief Web. 2020. Conflict is still Africa’s biggest challenge in 2020. [ONLINE] Available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/conflict-still-africa-s-biggest-challenge-2020. [Accessed 3 November 2020].

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To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Will Africans accept their destinies to be the ‘dishonorable graves’? As of 2020, half of Africa’s countries are still under authoritarian rule, while the other half are hybrid or flawed democracies, with Mauritius as the only country considered a full democracy. Human history suggests a breaking point where even the most oppressed people find the motivation to fight back. Although Africans have unwittingly accepted subservience to a parasitic ruling class, they, like the rest of the developed world, desire an influential voice in their existence. Although many Africans are empowered to speak through their electoral votes, they recognize the political system as rigged against them; electoral results hardly ever reflect electoral preferences. The question, therefore, is when will enough finally be enough? The disenfranchised, including those living in pseudo-democracies, can relate to the pressures that pushed Okonkwo to commit murder and then suicide. However, it is unlikely that many Africans would contemplate suicide to voice their dissent, some may. Indeed, a few have. Terrorist organizations, which are proliferating in Africa, recruit from amongst despondent populations who have concluded that the political process cannot marshal their concerns and preferences. In an essay that traced the sociology and psychology of terrorism, Rex A. Hudson contended that frustration pushes recruits into terrorist organizations. This hypothesis, based on the relative- deprivation hypothesis postulated by Ted Robert Gurr in 1970, was expanded by James Chowning Davies to show how individuals turn to aggression to address the widening and the worsening gap between their expectations and the reality of their lives. Joseph Margolin suggested that much of terrorism responds to growing frustration with political and economic outcomes as they impact individuals’ ability to meet their needs or goals. The frustration-aggression hypothesis does not pretend to explain every factor that influences the adoption of terrorism as a political strategy. Some of the other factors include being part of a subculture that sees terrorism as a useful response, the social psychology of prejudice and hatred, identity and negative- identity formation, narcissism-aggression hypothesis, or personal characteristics that predispose some individuals to terrorism. Those who are saddened by the closing sequence of Things Fall Apart fantasize about alternative endings. Would Okonkwo have engaged a different approach if a more benign form of colonialism afforded him political voice and influence within the collapsing walls of his story? It is difficult to see how any strain of colonialism from the nineteenth century would have been less draconian in dealing with colonized populations. However, the desire for individual liberty put a sustained strain on colonialism and ultimately paved the way for political independence. It is logical to expect that the same human desire for freedom will continue to exert growing

Page 6 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) pressure on the various forms of undemocratic governments in contemporary Africa. It is such freedoms that lead to sustained socio-economic progress. Democracy, in its most pristine form, promises to be an antithesis to illiberal forms of government in Africa by encouraging mass participation in the political process and by guaranteeing increased political voice. Liberal societies expect democracy to ensure that all voices are heard (individuals and groups). Democracy should help society achieve a balancing of power with the state. This outcome is what Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson refer to as existing within the ‘Narrow Corridor’5 where liberty is optimized. The question is, whether democracy can, indeed, deliver both voice and influence to the individual.

Vox populi The Nigerian folklorist, Mike Ejeagha, in one of his songs bemoaned the dilemma of the woman and her kitchen knives; the sharp one had no handle to offer a grip while the one with a handle is blunt. This metaphor is an apt description of government forms. None of them is perfect. What endows strength to a government also masks its weakness. This section presents the nature of government forms. It concludes that for as long as there is a person or group that assumes it is their prerogative to dole out liberty like Halloween treats to the masses, socio-economic progress will remain constrained. Democracy strikes a slightly different pose. From its origins in Classical Antiquity, democracy has remained, in the words of Winston Churchill, ‘the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ Democracy is the government form that seeks to capture the broadest representation of preferences for the highest number of people. It strives to become the most effective channel for gifting political voice, achieving liberty, and ensuring socio- economic progress. One cannot turn a blind eye to the challenges inherent in democracy’s philosophical underpinnings, its processes and eventual outcomes. The exploration in this section arrives at the same conclusion as Mike Ejeagha and Winston Churchill: democracy, while broken, is still the best horse in the stable.

Elite Conspiracies What is the history of the different government forms and what unique features do they have to promote political voice and influence? Human memory has lost the precise moment when humans realized the need for rules to govern their mutual co-

5 Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A., 2020. The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty. Penguin Books.

Page 7 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) existence. What is evident is that, for centuries, humans lived in organized social groups. Recent evidence indicates that, around 52 million years ago,6 our human ancestors shifted from a solitary existence to subsist within loose groups. This shift happened around the time when the ancestors of the monkeys and apes genetically separated from the ancestors of all other prosimian primates. Between then and now, our ancestors realized the need for a broad philosophy on how to administer their affairs. Without government structures, such existence in close physical proximity would have led to a worse-than-Hobbesian state of nature. Paraphrasing James Madison, if we were all angels, governments would be unnecessary. However, we are not. Humans require a system for organizing society to enact laws, decide on policies, and agree on how to deliver public goods. Philosophers like John Locke, Fredrich Engels and Adam Smith agreed that the absence of such a system raises the possibility of strife. Hence, societies, from antiquity to date, have needed government – in whatever form – to maintain order and ensure social progress. Samuel Edward Finer,7 a political scientist and historian, provided a sweeping review of the 4,600-year evolution of government forms from the Sumerian city-state of the third millennium B.C. to modern Europe. He evaluated various government forms using a set of three criteria - the nature of the dominant personnel, the political processes, and the basis for legitimacy – to arrive at four groups of government forms: Palace (or an autocratic or monarchical form of government), Forum (which is similar to a democracy because power derives from popular support), Nobility (where the aristocrats dominate power), and the Church (dominated by organized religion). Various government forms can be defined within the exact boundaries of Finer’s classification or as a combination of the different groups. Plato, the Athenian philosopher, in the Republic, Book VIII, classified five types of government regimes. In his declining order of preference, Plato presented the government regimes as aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. He was forceful in his conviction that aristocracy, and its three classes, offer the best form of government. Plato saw a ruling class or philosopher-kings with unimpeachable character and competence forged through an education that creates selfless and upright rulers who are willing to live a simple life dedicated to the greater good of society. Selection of the members of the ruling class is for their ability to place society above self. The group is trained to be wise, intelligent, rational, self- controlled, and well-suited to make the right decisions for the community. They

6 Shultz, S., Opie, C. and Atkinson, Q.D., 2011. Stepwise evolution of stable sociality in primates. Nature, 479(7372), pp.219-222. 7 Finer, S.E. and Finer, S.E., 1997. The History of Government from the Earliest Times: Ancient monarchies and empires (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press, USA.

Page 8 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) neither own property, nor are they burdened with the drudgery of labour so they can focus on the higher calling of building a society that works for all. One is hard-pressed to find a contemporary example of a philosopher-king. Jonny Thakker, a political scientist, asks if Barack Obama could be the closest contemporary example given his measured words, considered air, and ‘When the intellectual in the crowd sees Obama above him, he imagines a better version of himself.’8 The next aristocratic class, consisting of soldiers and guardians of the society, are responsible for ensuring that the masses adhere to the orders instituted by the ruling class and protect the integrity of their society from external aggression. Like the philosopher-kings, these soldier- guardians do not own property, nor are they involved in the drudgery of work. These groups do not have mundane concerns so they can focus their allegiances solely on the state. The third class consists of the producers or workers who toil to produce and serve the rest of society. Aristocracy, as defined by Plato, is the antithesis of the monarchies of his day. He conceived the philosopher-kings and soldier-guardians as a way to eliminate the blight of hereditary access to the commanding heights of the society. He believed that severing their umbilical cord from material possessions should enable them to concentrate on the greater good of society. Unlike hereditary monarchy, the class of philosopher-kings is not exclusive to only those who have gained entrance by familial privileges. Instead, the children of the soldier-guardians and the masses, who possess the requisite character and competence, have a pathway to becoming philosopher-kings as well. While alluring in design, the flaws in Plato’s aristocracy become evident in practice. It is overwhelming and unrealistic contemplating the size and complexity of the system required to monitor and designate citizenry class according to character and competence. Such controlled states usually fail under the weight of their complexities and contradictions. Continuing down his order of preference, Plato defined timocracy as the form of government that results when the purity of aristocracy is soiled when men of inferior standing and character ascend to power. Oligarchy, the third form of government, occurs when the wealthy rule. Plato ascribes the virtues of temperance and moderation to this group of leaders, assuming that their ability to accumulate wealth is evidence that they have dominated the urge to be wasteful. He expected that the oligarchs would bring the same level of efficiency that produced their wealth to the management of the affairs of state. Plato did not think highly of democracy – the fourth form of government – which emerges from the failures of oligarchy. He saw the democratic man as one consumed by uncontrollable instincts to satiate his

8 Thakker, J., 2009. Obama: Philosopher-King?. The Point Magazine, Issue 1, Politics, April 3, 2009

Page 9 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) unnecessary desires for consumerism. Such a man does whatever his heart desires, and this leads to a life with no priority or order. Plato’s final form of government, tyranny, emerges when there is a complete absence of discipline, and society descends to chaos. How has this thesis of government travelled in Africa? The idea of a moral, almost- saintly ruling class that lords it over the masses is flawed in conception and is an anathema to the core instincts of the contemporary African. Such saint-like selflessness is neither a product of education nor does it result from a detachment from material possessions. No leader in modern Africa, from the independence days of the 1960s to date, has successfully adorned the robes of a philosopher-king. However, the post-independence presidents of Ghana (Kwame Nkrumah), Malawi (Kamuzu Banda), Nigeria (Nnamdi Azikiwe) and a few others were, for a while, exalted to such pantheon. These leaders undoubtedly qualify as philosophers on account of their training, intellect and political ideologies: African Nationalism, Africanization, and Socialism. For their political accomplishments, including wrestling independence from the colonialists, the people may consider bestowing kingship on them. However, they fall short of all the other attributes required to become philosopher-kings. None of them rose above the allure of material attachments and, indeed, the law indicted a few of them on corruption charges. Kenyan academic and political writer, Ali Mazrui,9 conceded that Africa has ‘philosophizing rulers’ but even that theory has not spared the continent from dictatorships and continued attacks on individual liberties. Irrespective of definitions, the various government forms in Africa have not offered nor guaranteed political voice and influence to the common man. Recent studies have debunked fantasies that, historically, African governments were mainly by consensus where adult members of society had equal opportunity to debate and make decisions as a collective. The reality is more convoluted than the above. While discussions may be open and not based on class, a small select group, comprising of the traditional rulers and economic elite, made critical decisions. If need be, the group permitted the religious leaders into the “sphere of influence” so the latter bestowed heavenly or other-worldly endorsement on the decision. The reality is that while these government arrangements seemed to grant a political voice to the people, they did not guarantee liberty nor influence. Monarchies in Africa, whether absolute, as in the Kingdom of Eswatini, or constitutional, in Morocco or Lesotho, reserve exclusive access to the throne room for the select few who won the birth lottery. Anyone outside those circles can gain

9 Mazrui, A.A., 1990. On poet-presidents and philosopher-kings. Research in African Literatures, 21(2), pp.13-19.

Page 10 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) entrance to this vantage group either through a military coup or hope for access through an opening of the political space. It is, indeed, the historical design of monarchies in depriving the citizenry a political voice that led to the emergence of other forms of government. Oligarchies do not offer a healthy alternative for increased political voice in Africa. Although no nation in Africa - or indeed the world - is formally referred to as an oligarchy, many of the liberal democracies are, in both character and existence. From America to Zimbabwe, small groups of political and business elites control governments by shaping the way the electorate understands the political choices. The Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, refers to America as an oligarchy because political choices are limited to options favoured by the ruling elite. The oligarchs fund the think tanks and academic institutions that narrow the policy options for the electorate. They set up and finance the political action committees and media organizations that condition the people on what to think, prefer, and how to choose. They influence government policy to benefit their interests. In essence, the oligarchs are the neck that turns the head. Think of the Koch brothers and their outsized influence on libertarian and conservative politics in the United States. Or the Gupta family in South Africa and their dominance over government policies and business transactions during the presidency of Jacob Zuma. The situation is the same with Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, and his sway on economic policies in Nigeria. The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association have controlled the levers of economic and political powers in the country, from 1980 to date, including the ousting of Robert Mugabe when the latter exhausted his usefulness. African oligarchs, unburdened by the need to create wealth, fight for strategic positions at the feeding trough to take their share of the rent managed by the state. The losers in this equation are the masses, who, with a minimal political voice, bear the brunt of the illiberal policies. Many Africans, having failed to make the connection between the defective policies and low economic progress continue to blame their fate on identity politics (of ethnicity, religion and class) which the elite have used to divide and rule them for decades. Autocratic governments blight Africa. XX percent of African countries are still under authoritarian rule. These countries, which are typically governed by ‘big men’, attempt to control and direct all aspects of life in their countries through coercive or repressive laws and practices. Although Africa experienced progress from autocracies to democracies between 1960 and 2000, the latter declined in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Likewise, liberal democracy suffered a global decline with

Page 11 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) sustained attacks on individual freedoms. Is liberal democracy failing in Africa or is Africa failing in liberal democracies? In the short run, autocratic governments often deliver better results than young democracies because they are not time-limited by election calendars nor are they bound by democratic accountability or the need to respond to the whims of the electorate. Often enough, these successes lure the citizens to rationalize and justify a benevolent dictatorship over liberal democracy. The people become willing to sacrifice their liberties on the altar of economic growth if need be. The gradual compromises end up being a wanton erosion of freedoms and result in a reversal of fortunes in the long run. Africa is replete with examples of many failed experiments with the benevolent dictator model: Ibrahim Babangida in Nigeria, Jerry J. Rawlings in Ghana, Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt, France-Albert René of Seychelles and many others. The story is similar to the accelerated economic growth recorded in South East Asia (Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) in the 1960s, Latin America (Brazil) in the 1970s, and China since 1980s. Rwanda is delivering similar results that make it the envy of other African countries. However, benevolent dictatorships deliver pyrrhic gains. What appears to be a gain today is lost tomorrow. Africa needs a system that captures the preferences of the broadest number of people and is attentive to the needs of the electorate. Any government form, no matter the definition, that constrains liberty will fail.

Looking at the Demos Is democracy the answer? At the level of a cliché, democracy is the government of a people, by and for the people. That is probably where the consensus ends. The various theories of democracy agree that society works better under a government where majority preferences drive public choices. They reject any structure where a few individuals or group lord it over the rest of society. However, there is severe contention on the scope of power and the extent of equality. For instance, Aristotle’s conception of the ‘political community’ is at variance with Robert Dahl’s “pluralism’, but they are both under the democracy umbrella. Think of it as a family with different personalities. While Aristotle advocates electoral voice for those with ownership of private property, Friedrich Hayek, on the other end of the spectrum, advocates personal choice and freedom from government interference. In ‘Theories of Democracy: A Reader’, Ronald J. Terchek and Thomas C. Conte, present the different contending theories of democracy: liberal and republican traditions, protective democracy, pluralist democracy, performance democracy, and participatory democracy. The book presents a critique of contemporary democratic theories and practices including the realist and non-realist critiques, post-modernist

Page 12 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) critiques, discourse and democracy, those pushing for inclusion, and thoughts on democracy from scholars outside the West. Despite the differences in approach, the theories share a commitment that democracy, with all its challenges, is still the best government form for advancing societies. In contradistinction to other government forms, democracy, by its design, avails an influential political voice to the people (‘demos’). This system of government works because free and fair elections, held in preset intervals, enable the people to reward or punish their political elite. The competition inherent in democracy creates incentives for the government to strive for socio-economic progress. Indeed, when it works, it becomes a fertile ground as society becomes conducive for investments and growth. When it fails, it fails big. Direct democracy, or a process that avails everyone a voice on the administration of society, is desirable because it upholds the principles of equality. However, it is not without its challenges. An ignorant and irrational voter is potentially as lethal as a child playing with a loaded pistol. Insufficient understanding of the societal issues disposes the voter to sub-optimal choices or makes one susceptible to propaganda or manipulation. While the voice of the people should be the voice of God; Alcuin, an eighth-century adviser to Emperor Charlemagne, cautioned him to pay them no heed as, ‘the noise of the crowd is always close to madness.’ A focus on these voices may cause a government to disproportionately channel resources to social investments instead of the accumulation of physical capital which is essential for economic growth. Indeed, Jason Brennan,10 in ‘Against Democracy,’ adjudged this form of government as unjust because an uninformed electorate, with a right to vote, puts all of society at risk with their bad decisions and whims. The jury is still out on the wisdom of the 2017 vote by Britain to leave the European Union. As Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain, pointed out seven decades earlier, “In my country, the people can do as they like, although it often happens that they do not know what they have done.” Direct democracy must be acclaimed for granting equality but is potentially dangerous as such it needs a more intentional institution to consider and validate its choices. Representative democracy addresses some of the challenges of direct democracy. In this system, the electorate still retains the power of the vote but have to channel their influence through elected politicians who speak and act on their behalf. Most of the western-style democracies in Africa, both parliamentary and presidential systems, use some form of representative democracy with the separation of powers between the executive, independent judiciary, and legislature. As lofty as it is, Bernard Manin

10 Brennan, J., 2016. Against Democracy. 19th ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Page 13 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) argues strongly that representative democracy combines both democratic and undemocratic elements11 and is a slippery slope to aristocracy or, at best, a form of oligarchy. The sociologist, Robert Michel, in postulating the ‘iron law of oligarchy’, cautioned that this form of democracy is a façade for legitimizing elite rule.12 It is no wonder that the populace feels increasingly disconnected from its representatives hence the tendency to support populist politicians. The more contentious question is how to settle the methodological issues. Should these issues be put to a public vote? Earlier experiments with democracy started with the restriction of the vote to the educated, property-owning gentry. The thinking was that plebs should not vote on issues that affect the moneyed class. Illiteracy is another challenge to democracy in Africa. In his 1915 essay, ‘Illiteracy and Democracy’, Winthrop Talbot worried that a large American population who were illiterate or near-illiterate and ‘almost wholly isolated from the world of ideas and progress’ would be a barrier to democracy. Africa has similar challenges, with about 36 percent of its people still unable to read or write compared to a global average of 14 percent. Given the level of illiteracy and poverty in Africa, should the continent be experimenting with democracy? Make a case for democracy. Jason Brennan proposes epistocracy as a new system of government where only politically knowledgeable individuals who can competently justify their political views should be allowed to vote or run for office. He offered ancient Athens as an example of epistocracy. In those ancient days, only a small number of people voted, and they were mostly the educated member of the society who had the time to focus on esoteric issues of politics. While the proposed system addresses the challenge of an ill-informed electorate, it opens up other challenges. Intellectual competence does not necessarily translate to integrity nor a commitment to the common good. Robert Mugabe, former president of Zimbabwe, was one of the most knowledgeable public officials in Africa but, after 30 years in power, he succeeded in pauperizing his people while enriching his family and cronies. Africa, and indeed the world, is replete with examples of brilliant leaders who wreak havoc on their countries. Epistocracy and the many variants of elite democracy are fundamentally myopic and at best paternalistic. They provide neither voice nor influence for the average voter in the society. The educated representatives may not always speak for their constituents. Indeed, there is no guarantee that the structures of epistocracy address the risks inherent in an uninformed voter.

11 Manin, B., 1997. The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge University Press. 12 Michels, R., 1915. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Hearst's International Library Company.

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Thomas Christiano contends that a fair voting process makes democracy intrinsically just irrespective of the nature of the outcome. Voting results signal to the political elite the preferred policy and programmes of their constituents. Nevertheless, democracy’s processes are not always fair nor the best format for delivering socio- economic progress. Regular and frequent elections, which enable voters to support or oppose politicians, may inadvertently lead to short-termism in policies and programmes. As a result, politicians focus on projects that can be started and completed in a few months, even when they may not be the most critical projects for the electorate. Likewise, the nature of democracy demands coalitions of sometimes strange bedfellows to secure power, and not necessarily, because of an ideological alignment. Such arrangements lead to government policies and programmes that may not be sustainable or deliver lasting impact. Plato argued that, ultimately, democracy leads to anarchy because the electorate chooses those who know how to play on their emotions. Africa is replete with examples of populist politicians from the independence era of the 1960s to present; from sit-tight presidents like Paul Biya (Cameroun), dictators like Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), to democratic presidents like Jacob Zuma (South Africa). Danielle Resnick argues that poverty and the nature of party competition in Africa creates a fertile ground for populist politics.13 These populist politicians kowtow to the whims and caprices of the voters even if they are wasteful and add little socio-economic progress. The founding fathers of the United States of America tried to limit the free- ranging process of democracy by introducing the principles of republics. Niccolo Machiavelli saw it slightly differently and conceived a hybrid democracy with a separation of the powers of the state into the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, to check each other. These structures exist in many African democracies but are not protected. In some cases, especially in Africa with its extractive political institutions, the executive usurps the powers of the legislature and the judiciary. Political voice matters, for many reasons, especially for the socio-economic development of a people. It offers an effective channel through which the people communicate their dreams and fears to the politicians and policymakers. When the voice is influential, it puts pressure on the ruling class to address the people’s concerns. When it is not as effective, the rulers lord it over the people. While not perfect, democracy still offers the best mechanism for delivering liberty which is a precursor for development. How has democracy fared in Africa?

13 Resnick, D., 2010. Populist strategies in African democracies (No. 2010/114). WIDER Working Paper.

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Broken but not Shattered Africa has a mixed bag of democratic, autocratic, and ‘hybrid’ transitional regimes14. A wave of democratization scaled across the continent from the 1980s resulting in a transition from despotic military regimes and single-party governments towards liberal democracies. The combination of factors that triggered the democratization wave includes the end of the Cold War, the collapse of single-party communist regimes around the world, the establishment of capitalism as the dominant economic system, severe economic stagnation across Africa that led to the cocktail of the economic reform from the Bretton Woods Institutions, and the strengthening of civil society voices demanding for an opening up of the political and economic space. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, Africa recorded a reversal of democratic gains. Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that describes itself as the ‘clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world’, shows a marginal decline in political voice in the continent; as measured by political rights and civil liberties. Using a set of 10 political rights indicators and 15 civil liberties indicators, Freedom House rates countries and territories as Free, Partially Free, or Not Free. 15 The number of African countries rated as ‘Free’ dropped from 11 in 2013 to 7 in 2020 while those rated as ‘Partially Free’ increased from 19 in 2013 to 25 in 2020. On a more positive note, the number of African countries and territories rated as ‘Not Free’ declined marginally from 20 in 2013 to 18 in 2020. Three decades into the supposed ‘wave’ of democratization, Africa’s trajectory is stalling and may reverse. Governments may become more authoritarian as the economic outlook dims in the face of changing demographics and growing demands from the people. Countries that should be the models of democratic government, such as the United States, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, Hungary, are becoming more authoritarian. Democracy, in its classical definition, promised to enable inclusive institutions that will fundamentally alter the nature of governance in Africa. Decades in, multiparty elections in Africa have not delivered sustained improvements in democratic governance, specifically in terms of the protections of civil liberties and freedoms. Democracy has failed to wrestle powers from the elites and bequeath it to the people.

14 A hybrid or transitional regime a government that is still in a state of incomplete transition typically from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Such regimes while having the trappings of a democratic government (regular elections, different arms of government, etc.) may retain autocratic features that shape the economic and political institutions. 15 The political rights indicators are grouped into three sub-categories: Electoral Process, Political Pluralism and Participation, and Functioning of Government. The civil liberties questions are grouped into four subcategories: Freedom of Expression and Belief, Associational and Organizational Rights, Rule of Law, and Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights.

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Indeed, old habits die hard. Modern Africa is yet to shed its historical fondness for the ruler seen as the ‘father of the nation.’ This patrimonial image impacts governance because such an omniscient and omnipotent (probably even omnipresent) leader cannot be questioned by mere mortals especially as both the Quran and the Bible, the holy books of the two dominant religions on the continent, agree that political power comes for God. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in their 2010 essay, “Why is Africa Poor?’, refer to this as ‘intensely absolutist and patrimonial’. Increasingly, the evidence gives credence to Claude Ake’s conclusion that Africa’s experiment with democracy was more of a ‘democratization of disempowerment.’16 Democracy is fragile. While it appears that democracy has laid down taproots in the continent, this progress is not yet irreversible. Recent coup d’état in Zimbabwe in 2017 and Mali in 2020 and coup attempts in nine African countries between 2015 and 2020 show that the military may not be resting easy in their barracks. The temptation to put their guns to use may be hard to resist, especially as the civilian governments struggle to deliver the dividends of democracy. Africans must fight to entrench the institutions of democracy or run the risk of a return to the coups and countercoup of the 1980s and 1990s. While democracy seems to be on a retreat globally,17 it is holding on strong in Africa. Africans maintain a high level of desire and support for democracy and accountable governance. As of 2018, there was a slight deep in preference for democracy from 72 percent in 2012 to 68 percent in 2018. Notwithstanding, Africans still showed a high acceptance for multiparty competition (63 percent), high-quality elections (75 percent), and presidential term limits (75 percent).18 This commitment needs to be protected.

Progress through Democracy Scholars do not dispute the correlation between democracy and economic growth. The contention is the age-old chicken and egg dilemma: is it economic development that facilitates the transition from authoritarian government forms to democracy, or is it democracy that triggers economic development. The “theory of modernization” by Seymour Martin Lipset argues that democracy is a consequence of the economy; that is, the wealthier a nation, the higher the probability of success of its democracy.

16 Ake, C., 1994. Democratization of Disempowerment. Lagos, Nigeria: Malthouse CASS Occasional Monograph, (1). 17 The 2019 Freedom in the World report titled, Democracy in Retreat’, showed that a decline in global freedom for the 13th consecutive year. Even long-standing democracies are tending towards more authoritarian leaders. 18 Gyimah-Boadi, E. (2018). Is there a retreat from democracy? Ask Africans. Afrobarometer.

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James A. Robinson, in a 2006 paper, suggests that growth in income per capita is correlated to democracy because the same factors that determine the level of prosperity in society also determine its democracy. A study by Matthew A. Baum and David A. Lake19 argues that democracy has a significant indirect effect on economic growth through its impact on public health and education. The healthier and more educated a population, the more discerning they are with their political choices. Hence, the higher the caliber of the political representative, the better their political and economic decisions. But what of China? It is a communist government that has consistently achieved economic progress. Rwanda is Africa’s best example of a benevolent dictatorship and has posted consistent economic growth. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue that for a nation to realize sustainable economic growth, it requires inclusive economic institutions which, in the long run, needs inclusive political institutions. Inclusivity, in this instance, means when the people have a say in the critical decisions that affect their lives as opposed to ‘extractive’ institutions where a small group of people make the decisions that affect society. China and Rwanda can post strong economic growth despite their extractive institutions because such institutions can co-exist with inclusive economic institutions - for a while - because the elite are interested in increased outputs. However, the failure to evolve more inclusive political institutions will, ultimately, lead to excesses that will, in turn, lead to economic decline.

Democratic Progress Liberal democracy is a crucial channel for establishing inclusive institutions. Through elections, the people are empowered to select competent and civic-minded public servants and to reject bad candidates.20 It is this power that creates the growth-triggering incentive structure that leads to improved development outcomes. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson21 use institutional theory to explain how inclusive political institutions enable inclusive economic institutions which, in turn, facilitate economic development. The economic institutions result from the continuous contestation between the political actors on how best to structure the society and the economy. Thus, any factor that influences the political institutions and their outcomes affect the eventual economic results. Elections do.

19 Baum, M.A. and Lake, D.A., 2003. The Political Economy of Growth: Democracy and Human Capital. American Journal of Political Science, 47(2), pp.333-347. 20 Besley, Timothy. 2005. ‘Political Selection.’ The Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (3): 43–60. 21 Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A, 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. London: Profile.

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Political and economic institutions in Africa are mostly extractive and pose a challenge to economic progress. Even the civil service, which should be independent of political interference, is, in most cases, part of the long leprous arm of the extractive elite. The bureaucracy across Africa is, on average, immature without a culture that is strong enough to resist interference from the political elite. Any effort to address these challenges must rely on the power of the vote and the incentive changes that elections engender. Elections are pivotal to this causal relationship between democracy and economic progress. High integrity elections are critical if democracy is to catalyze progress. Such elections uphold democratic principles of universal suffrage and political equality as reflected in international standards and agreements.22 The entire election preparation and administration must be – and seen to be - professional, impartial, and transparent in all its ramifications. The electorate is empowered to select high valence and civic-minded candidates and to also sanctions errant behavior.23 Scholarly evidence, which is consistent with the experience in Africa, indicates that the electorate prefers honest and high-performing candidates.24 This point does not negate the fact that the voters may be induced with ‘votes-for-money’; however, this is mostly if they believe the elections will be rigged and their votes will not count. It is rational to extract whatever financial value one can for the vote, especially if it is evident that the votes will not count towards the final results. Evidence from the Afro- Barometer Surveys indicates that the African electorate will typically state their electoral preference if they are convinced that the elections will be free and fair.25 Scholarly evidence indicates that high integrity elections improve the politicians’ responsiveness to the electorate. A 2019 study in Ghana shows that high integrity elections incentivize incumbent politicians to focus more on satisfying their citizens’ demands instead of relying on elite patronage or election rigging for their desired electoral outcomes.26 The politicians elected through fair elections spent, on average, 19 percent more of their Community Development Fund on public goods than their

22 Annan, K., de Leon, E.P., Ahtisaari, M. and Albright, M.K., 2012. Deepening Democracy: A Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide. Report of the Global Commission on Elections. Democracy and Security, Stockholm. 23 Fearon, James D. 1999. ‘Electoral Accountability and the Control of Politicians: Selecting Good Types versus Sanctioning Poor Performance.’ In Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, eds. Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan C., and Manin, Bernard. New York: Cambridge University Press, 55–97. 24 Bratton, Michael. 2013. ‘Where Do Elections lead in Africa?’ In Voting and Democratic Citizenship in Africa, ed. Michael Bratton. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 17–38. 25 Ferejohn, John. 1986. ‘Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control.’ Public Choice 50 (1): 5–25. 26 Ofosu, G.K., 2019. Do fairer elections increase the responsiveness of politicians? American Political Science Review, 113(4), pp.963-979.

Page 19 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) counterfactual. This causal relationship is more robust when both the political elite and the electorate are assured that the elections cannot be rigged or manipulated. In a system with low voting integrity, as obtains in most of sub-Saharan Africa, it is logical for the politician to invest more resources on patronage than on public infrastructure. Ayo Fayose, a two-term governor of a state in Nigeria, popularized the term, ‘stomach infrastructure’, which is Nigerian vernacular for handouts of money or food to the electorate to influence electoral outcomes. The phrase acknowledges that people care more for the food in their stomachs or money in their hands to buy food than for physical infrastructure. In such low integrity environments, politicians have learnt that it is pragmatic, indeed, wise to amass resources for election-day rigging rather than for the delivery of public goods. However, other external influences that affect the ease of rigging elections may cause the incumbent to spend more time working with the people to deliver their needs.27 Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, in a 2015 paper showed that when politicians are aware of a monitored electoral process, they focus more on delivering public good, instead of granting personal benefits to the elites, their constituents, or on plans to win their reelection fraudulently.28 Indeed, the risk of being caught on election fraud deters politicians from trying. It is this realization that informs the millions of dollars spent on election monitoring exercises around the world. Various scholars suggest that election monitoring leads to reduced incidents of electoral fraud.29 While high integrity elections may improve responsiveness, it does not always translate to improved governance outcomes. Politicians deliver public goods if their electoral powers come from the people or they may invest instead in private patronage if the elite controls the votes.30 Therefore, economic progress comes through the causal relationship between political institutions that empower the people. Democracy correlates to economic progress when political power proceeds from the people and not from a small ruling elite.

27 Ofosu, G.K., 2019. Do fairer elections increase the responsiveness of politicians? American Political Science Review, 113(4), pp.963-979. 28 Collier, P. and Hoeffler, A., 2015. Do elections matter for economic performance? Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 77(1), pp.1-21. 29 Ichino, N. and Schündeln, M., 2012. Deterring or displacing electoral irregularities? Spillover effects of observers in a randomized field experiment in Ghana. The Journal of Politics, 74(1), pp.292-307. 30 Asante, K., Brobbey, V. and Ofosu, G., 2011. Responding to Constituent's Demands: Survival Strategies of Legislators in Ghana's Fourth Republic. Available at SSRN 2353296.

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Election Challenges Democracy is preferred to other government forms because it institutes a system for rewarding and sanctioning regimes. Its impact is based on the principles of political equality, equitable representation, and accountability. This system is upheld through a free and fair electoral process that is guided by generally-acceptable laws. Any activity that negates these democratic principles robs the people of their power and distorts democratic outcomes. Electoral fraud is problematic for democracy because it denies the electorate their choice of candidates and puts the power in the hands of those perpetrating the fraud. Worse still, electoral fraud affects public confidence in democracy, impacts regime legitimacy, discourages political participation, and may trigger public protests and political violence.31 The world has a rich history of fraudulent elections. The worst case is the 1927 Liberian general elections where the winner, Charles D. B. King, received 243,000 votes in a country with less than 15,000 registered voters. Between 1980 and 2004, significant incidents of electoral fraud affected about a quarter of elections held worldwide.32 While all democracies – rich and poor, old and young - are vulnerable to election irregularities, they are worse in hybrid or transitional regimes and in autocracies that seek to maintain a veneer of democracy.33 Election fraud manifests in different forms. In the developing world, it takes the form of altered election results, ballot stuffing, vote-buying, and voter intimidation. In the developed world, it takes the subtler form of gerrymandering, destruction or invalidation of ballots, tampering with electronic voting systems, misuse of proxy votes, mis-recording of votes, postal ballot fraud, and many other forms. The electoral process is long, with many moving parts that are vulnerable to fraud. The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, the largest online community and repository of electoral knowledge, outlines phases of the electoral process as “the design and drafting of legislation, the recruitment and training of electoral staff, electoral planning, voter registration, the registration of political parties, the nomination of parties and candidates, the electoral campaign, polling, counting, the tabulation of results, the declaration of results, the resolution of electoral disputes, reporting, auditing and archiving.” An election may be rigged and decided even before the general elections.

31 Ichino, N. and Schündeln, M., 2012. Deterring or displacing electoral irregularities? Spillover effects of observers in a randomized field experiment in Ghana. The Journal of Politics, 74(1), pp.292-307. 32 Kelley, J., 2011. Data on International Election Monitoring: Three Global Datasets on Election Quality, Election Events And International Election Observation. ICPSR1461-v1. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. 33 Norris, P., Frank, R.W. and i Coma, F.M., 2014. Measuring electoral integrity around the world: A new dataset. PS: Political Science & Politics, 47(4), pp.789-798.

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For instance, party grandees can use the party primaries to narrow the choice of candidates on the ballot.34 Election fraud can be broadly categorized into issues with election laws, election management boards, campaign finance, equality, and violence and intimidation. The election law should be the bulwark against fraudulent elections by protecting the integrity of the electoral process and guaranteeing redress in the event of any electoral malpractices. Election participants – the politicians and electorate alike – must be assured that the laws are above reproach and that the judiciary is independent and owes no allegiance to any person or parties. Election dispute resolution must follow a set of incontrovertible rules and processes. For instance, in the run-up to Nigeria’s 2019 elections, once the incumbent president replaced the Chief Justice with a crony, it became apparent that he was getting ready for a favorable Supreme Court decision if need be. The same can be said for President Donald Trump’s appointment of a Supreme Court Judge in the weeks leading to the elections. This move is not only a break with convention but gets weird when the new Justice Amy Coney Barrett refused to recuse herself should the election petition get to the Supreme Court. For an election to be adjudged as one with high integrity, all parties must be assured that they can obtain legal redress on election-related issues without fear or favour. Election management bodies must be seen to be autonomous and free of any interferences from the incumbent government. The organizations must be professional and competent to organize the elections without any cases of malpractice. Their funding must be independent of interference and control from the incumbent administration. Cite examples of lack of EMB independence in Africa. Regulation of uncontrolled and opaque campaign finance should be a priority for any country that seeks to uphold the voice of the electorate. The challenges are similar across the developed and developing worlds as the oligarchs and corporations seek to control the electoral process. Incumbent governments in countries with extractive political institutions can capture the state and use state funds to influence electoral outcomes either by bribing electoral officials or outright vote-buying. Civil society organizations should work with the government to establish appropriate regulations and checks on donations and expenditure. The sources and uses of funds for political campaigns should be tracked and regulated, and any abuse of the process should be sanctioned. Cite examples to validate this point. Equality in a democratic process ensures that all qualifying adults, irrespective of age, gender, literacy level, geographic location, and abilities can express their

34 Ichino, Nahomi, and Nathan, Noah L.. 2012. ‘Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana.’ British Journal of Political Science 42 (4): 769–91.

Page 22 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) preference. Any action, method or system that disenfranchises any member of society is an infringement on democracy. For instance, any voting method that relies on the use of force to pull a lever disenfranchises many of the old and disabled voters. Any technology that is complicated to use disenfranchises the uneducated. Voting methods should guarantee voter privacy and eliminate the risks of voter intimidation, vote-buying, or inconvenience of the election process. Violence and intimidation are other ways to deter voters from effecting their political preferences. Governments must ensure that the security agencies put in place deterrents for violence. If they do occur, the legal system must be such that it properly prosecutes the culprits. The challenge is that, in some of the African countries and young democracies, the security agents, who should provide the deterrents, are the perpetrators of the violence on behalf of the incumbent government. Cite examples from across Africa to validate this point. Impacts of rigged elections are ‘sticky’ as evidence indicates that voters may not be able to retroactively vote-out poor-performing incumbents (Ofosu, 2018; Ferejohn, 1986). This situation may be worse in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world with extractive or poorly-developed institutions. Such politicians perpetuate themselves in power. Many tenured politicians handpick their successors as a way to protect themselves from prosecution after they have left office Evidence. The fear of rigged elections dissuades participation. Compromise of any of the stages in the electoral cycle can mar the entire process.35 While there is need to fraud-proof the whole process, research by Max Grömping and Ferran Matinez i Coma found that in Africa, the vote count is the part of the election cycle that is most consistently prone to fraud. The rest of this chapter will focus on outlining the challenges with the vote- count and how technology can be leveraged to address these challenges.

Election Day Woes On 18 November 2017, voters in Anambra, a state in Nigeria, went to the polls to elect their governor. The election had a strong line-up of candidates, including Osita Chidoka, a young, dynamic leader whose record of both private and public sector successes excited the voters. Many of them remembered how the young man transformed a moribund federal government agency into a technology-driven and nimble organization feted with international awards from the World Bank to Prince Michael of Kent. Chidoka’s campaign checked many of the critical boxes. He is arguably the first Nigerian politician to crowdsourced his campaign funds so as not to be indebted to any of the political “godfathers”. Anambra state has a history of

35 Grömping, M. and i Coma, F.M., 2015. Electoral integrity in Africa. Electoral Integrity Project, 22.

Page 23 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) unholy dalliances between politicians and the elites intent on ‘state-capture.’ Chidoka ran a robust issue-based campaign with evidence-informed proposals to bring transparency to governance processes, invest in selected economic sectors, and put millions of unemployed youths to work. The excitement of his candidacy helped in recruiting about 35,000 staff and volunteers, many of whom worked shifts at the 200- seat call centre canvassing the 2 million registered voters in the state. National newspapers adjudged Chidoka the winner of the nationally-televised election debate held a week to the elections. However, when the final results were announced, Chidoka secured only 8,000 out of the 448,000 votes cast in the elections. How is that even possible? How does 35,000 staff and volunteers translate to 8,000 votes? Chidoka’s performance at the polls mirrors the many challenges plaguing elections in Africa. Low integrity elections dent voters’ trust in the process. Africa scored 58 points on the 2015 Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) Index compared to a global average of 64 points. Believing that their votes will not count, several voters sell their votes to the highest bidder. It does not help that there is a deep level of distrust for political leaders resulting from decades of vacuous and failed campaign promises. Today, the electorate paints public officials with the same brush of distrust which is also the reason why, in the past, Africans took to the street in jubilation to welcome successful military coups. Over time, they realized that both the military and the politicians are two sides of the same rusty coin because the problem is neither the individuals nor their intent to do the right thing; instead, it is the system they operate in and the route through which they ascended to power. Low integrity elections deepen the voter apathy towards the electoral process.

Broken System Vote-buying is a significant challenge in Africa. Data from the continent-wide Afrobarometer survey shows that 69 percent of respondent were ‘sometimes’ offered bribes for their votes.36 Voters in the 2017 elections in Anambra (Nigeria) contended with the same plague. The going rate for a vote in that election was 5,000 naira (or $16 in 2017 dollars) which is a hefty amount in a state where a monthly minimum wage was 18,000 naira (or $58) and 27.5 percent unemployment and underemployment rate.37 The voters had two choices; one, accept the $16 and immediately solve real problems; or two, refuse the money and hope that five other variables align. To choose the second option, the voter has to believe that one, the

36 Penar, P., Aiko, R., Bentley, T. and Han, K., 2016. Election quality, public trust are central issues for Africa’s upcoming contests. Afrobarometer Policy Paper No. 35. 37 National Bureau of Statistics, 2017. Labor Force Statistics Vol. 1: Unemployment and Underemployment Report (Q1-Q3, 2017), December 2017

Page 24 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) other voters would likewise reject the offer. After all, what is the point in being the only one to refuse the offer? This is the classic “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. Two, the voter has to believe that the votes would be counted as cast. Three, hope that one’s candidate can defend the votes against all kinds of electoral manipulations. Four, hope that one’s candidate is indeed as good as he or she claims to be and is able to implement the campaign promises. The odds are low given the history of failed promises from both civilian politicians and the military coupists. Five, hope that one does not die from hunger before the economic progress trickles down to one’s community. The odds are stacked against the poor, unemployed voter who wants to vote in line with their conscience. It is the probability of flipping ‘heads’ five times in a row. Indeed, the options are 100 percent of $16 today or 3 percent of a great outcome tomorrow. Many of Chidoka’s campaign staff and volunteers stood no chance. They accepted the sure-bet. Stomach-infrastructure won. According to Chidoka, when he knew the game was up was when the polling station agents stopped taking his calls hours before the polls closed. As the Akan of present-day Ghana and Ivory Coast have known for centuries, dogs do not prefer bones to meat; it is just that no one ever gives them meat. Give the people a system that addresses their fears and they will reject the money-for-votes and vote with their conscience. Juxtapose the Chidoka scenario with voters on Big Brother Naija, a Nigerian reality T.V. programme, in which 14 to 21 young contestants live in a house and compete for a large cash prize and other winnings. Every week, viewers vote for their favorite contestants and the one with the lowest number of votes is evicted from the Big Brother house. Each of the votes cost 30 naira (or 8 cents in 2020 dollars). Voyeurism, that half-guilty pleasure that dates back to peepshows in Parisian brothels in the 1850s, is the allure of the show. With every angle in the house covered by cameras, life in the house is on round-the-clock display. The contestants engage in all forms of antics to win over fans. The competition is quite severe and takes on all the character of a typical political campaign in Nigeria. The contestants have fan clubs that feel like volunteers and staffers in a campaign. These fans create hashtags campaign for their favoured contestant. Sometimes these groups are formed along identity lines of ethnicity and class. However, here is the point. By the time the votes were tallied, the 2020 season of Big Brother Naija had grossed 900 million votes. To put this in perspective, Nigeria’s 2019 presidential elections grossed a total of 26 million votes. Why is it that young Nigerians are willing to pay to vote for their candidates on a game show but sit-out political elections that have real impacts on their lives? Why are they willing to fund campaign organizations to support their candidates on Big

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Brother Naija but quickly sell their votes for $16 during general elections? The answers may be found in the integrity challenges with the voting process in Nigeria. The voters on the gameshow can vote without overt fears of election rigging. The same cannot be said for other elections in Africa. Low integrity elections dissuade participation, increase the risk of voter coercion, and impact regime integrity and stability. Low participation, which is a challenge even in older democracies, is attributable to cynicism, indifference, or a sense that the votes will not make a difference. Rational Choice theory explains that the average voter will engage the process if the benefits outweigh the cost. Other sociological factors determine participation: levels of education, income, employment, access to information, and many other factors. These challenges are the same in America as they are in South Africa with its hard-won right to vote for blacks. For many Africans, it is logical and rational response not to risk the long hours on a queue to vote when one is uncertain that the final results would reflect their preferences. Why expose oneself to the ever-present risk of violence when it is unclear that the efforts will count? The risks are evident; from the political thugs paid to coerce voters or to engage in election fraud to the government security forces who usually work as ‘muscle’ for the incumbent government. Election fraud occur in all democracies: rich and poor, old and young. The fraud can be perpetuated at any phase along the electoral cycle; even before voting commences. The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, the largest online community and repository of electoral knowledge, outlines the different phases of the electoral process as “the design and drafting of legislation, the recruitment and training of electoral staff, electoral planning, voter registration, the registration of political parties, the nomination of parties and candidates, the electoral campaign, polling, counting, the tabulation of results, the declaration of results, the resolution of electoral disputes, reporting, auditing and archiving.” It is easy to see the potential points of vulnerability from this list. Indeed, no electoral process is fraud-free. Even the high-election integrity environments can be manipulated, especially in the earlier parts of the election process, such as during the voter registration, media campaigns, or with campaign finance issues. On the other hand, election fraud in low-integrity environments occurs mainly in the later stages during the polls: vote counting, vote tabulation and declaration of results. For Africa, the latter stage malpractices cut more than once and, probably, deeper. These malpractices are more evident to the electorate and, as such, have a more than proportionate influence on how they perceive and interact with the entire electoral process. Provide evidence. Visible and independently-

Page 26 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) verifiable improvements in the voting system will improve electoral integrity and encourage increased electoral participation in Africa.

Evolution of Voting Methods Africa must fix its election day processes to improve voter perception of election integrity if it hopes to get the right people into political offices. To start, there is a need to understand the evolution of voting technologies in Africa. Mindful that Africa is not a monolithic space, any effort at weaving a common voting history risks an over-generalization as various countries travelled different paths from voice-votes to paper ballots. The first recorded use of paper to conduct elections was in Rome in 139 B.C. following the introduction of the secret ballot. However, the name, ballot, is from sixteenth-century Italy where small balls (‘ballotta’) were used to denote votes. Africa’s first elections using the European model was in the mid- nineteenth century in the French Settlements in Senegal.38 Subsequently, in 1858, Australia modernized the paper ballots such that they came with the pre-printed names of the candidates. This form of paper ballots was first used in Africa in the 1910 South African Senate elections held on 15 September 1910. From thence to now, paper ballots have remained the most common voting methods around the world and has even continued to exist side-by-side with the introduction of mechanical and electronic voting systems. The process is relatively straightforward. The voter uses a pen or inked-fingerprint to indicate their preference beside their candidate, party or option on a pre-printed ballot paper. Countries like Israel provide an option for the voter to write-in an option that is not pre-printed on the ballot. Properly executed, the paper voting method ensures voter privacy and assures an accurate and impartial count. However, there are many examples in multiple jurisdictions across the continent, where paper ballots are prone to fraud. Election materials can be stolen or hijacked while ballot boxes can be stuffed with fake ballots. Manual voting is amenable to voter coercion from party thugs. Results can be falsified as there are many points of human interface: voting, collation and transmission of results. Similarly, the illiterate or blind may be disenfranchised by their inability to read the ballots. Improperly thumb-printed ballots can be subjects of dispute which can either be accepted or rejected depending on the allegiance of the team counting the votes. Such borderline votes skewed so many closely contested elections in the United States and became one of the primary reasons why the government moved to

38 Ellis, S., 2000. Elections in Africa in historical context. In Election observation and democratization in Africa (pp. 37-49). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Page 27 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) electronic voting methods to achieve “objective and uniform standards for counting votes”. Paper ballots have other limitations. While they can be used for straight forward votes, when a small number of candidates are on the ballot, they become unwieldy the higher the number of parties participating in the elections. For instance, 91 registered political parties in Nigeria fielded 73 presidential candidates for the 2019 general election; a long list to have on a ballot. Imagine the stack of ballot papers each voter has to handle if some referendum questions are placed on the ballot. Voting technologies evolved to mechanical lever voting machines to address the weaknesses with paper ballots. The process is simple enough. The voter enters a curtained-booth for privacy, moves the big lever to the right to set the machine in a voting position, pulls some little knobs to select voting preferences, pull the lever to the left to record the vote. The counter inside the machine keeps track of the votes, and a result is produced at the end of the voting process. The machines, which date back to the nineteenth century but saw their heydays in the 1960s, addressed some of the problems of the paper ballot. At over 800 pounds, the machines are too heavy to move around or stolen. They eliminate the risk of tampering with electoral materials and also voter coercion. However, they introduced new problems. The machines are expensive to purchase, test, store, service, and deploy at polling stations. The machines are not entirely fraud-proof as the technicians can manipulate them to record more votes for one candidate over the others. With over 20,000 parts in the machine, there is a myriad of issues that can go wrong. Without a paper ballot, there is a significant risk of a hung election if the machine breaks down or there is a dispute over the recorded votes. The machine assumes a certain level of literacy to be able to operate the knobs to select and vote for a candidate without assistance. Electronic punch-card machines address many of the challenges of the mechanical lever voting devices with the critical advantage being the cost of acquisition and maintenance. In this system developed in 1964, the voter indicates their preference by punching holes in the provided paper computer card which is later fed into the machine to record the votes. The punch card system has an advantage over the mechanical lever voting system because there is a paper ballot that can be recounted or audited. The chad, which is the part punched out of the ballot card, became infamous in the 2000 United States presidential elections as its description determined the outcome of that election. Partially or incompletely punched holes resulted in different definitions and interpretations, gifting new words to the political lexicon: “hanging chad”, when a part of the chad is still attached to the ballot; “fat or pregnant chad”, when there is an indentation, but all corners are still attached. George W. Bush won that election, but the controversy caused the United States to discontinue the use of that system.

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Optical scan ballots were introduced to address the challenges with punch-card voting machines. They use the same technology used in grading standardized tests. The marked paper ballots are scanned into an electronic device that tallies and transmits the results to a central collation centre. These ballots are susceptible to a variety of errors including improper feeding of the ballots into the scanners, paper jams, erroneous readings from overheated scanners and others. The electronic transmission of results can be hacked. The new touch-screen electronic voting systems or direct-recording electronic (DRE) systems address many of the challenges of the optical scan machines. The devices can be programmed to enable various functionalities that reduce errors. Ballots can be presented to voters in innovative ways. Similarly, the devices can be programmed to be easier for both the illiterate and disabled to use. A study that compared the usability of electronic voting machines and the traditional voting technologies such as paper ballots, lever machines and punch-card machines showed little differences in terms of efficiency or effectiveness; however, the DRE offered better user satisfaction.39 After circling the block, it is back to the dilemma of the kitchen knives. None of the current voting methods is without its challenges. For Africa to return power to the people, it needs boldness and confidence to evolve a method that delivers high integrity elections mindful of its peculiar challenges. Technology will play a significant role in upgrading election in Africa, with a focus on the voting process: vote count, results collation, and transmission. This point does not negate the need to address the challenges across the election phases; instead, it highlights that the priority for Africa, at this point, should be to fix its election day issues. Technology can improve electoral integrity by minimizing human interface in the voting process. According to the British dramatist and screenwriter, Tom Stoppard, ‘it is not the voting that’s democracy; it is the counting.’ Politicians in low election-integrity environments know this fact, so they focus more on election-day balloting. Most efforts to improve election quality focus on eliminating challenges with election-day balloting, vote-counting, and result transmission. This point is the reason for the millions of dollars spent on election observers. There is, however, evidence that while election observers can reduce incidents of fraud, they

39 Everett, S.P., Greene, K.K., Byrne, M.D., Wallach, D.S., Derr, K., Sandler, D. and Torous, T., 2008, April. Electronic voting machines versus traditional methods: Improved preference, similar performance. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 883-892).

Page 29 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III Chapter 2: POWER OF THE PEOPLE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) do not entirely prevent it.40 Hence, the need to leverage technology to enhance election day processes. The perception of improved integrity encourages voter turnout and participation. Similarly, civic-minded candidates who hitherto exited the political arena on account of low integrity elections may be encouraged to return to the field to vie for office. The electorate is emboldened to reward or sanction their public officials. Without the evidence of improved electoral integrity, voters may continue to sit out the elections even if they have information on the corruption of public officials. Similarly, improvements in electoral integrity lead to improved regime legitimacy in both young and established democracies, and this makes the people more willing to comply with rules and regulations. Neither of these points minimizes the fact that electronic voting technologies are not without their shortcomings as well. Can Africa get to a point where the people can vote for their preferred candidates? This scenario is possible with technology. The optimal voting technology for Africa must eliminate human interface in the voting, collation, transmission and publication of the results to ensure that the announced election results reflect the preference of the people. The preferred technology must encourage participation by eliminating the inefficiencies with voter registration and the voting process. It must promote inclusion of all, irrespective of literacy levels, physical disabilities, or remoteness of physical residency. It must eliminate opportunities for voter coercion and vote-buying; and eliminate delays in vote counting and the release of official results. The technology must be impregnable to hacking or interference with the transmission of results and also enable result auditability without reliance on paper ballots. After two centuries, Africa should be ready to cut off its reliance on paper. The solution calls for boldness and confidence that Africa can leap ahead of the world without necessarily going through the same stages as the rest of the world. The continent should draw strength from the fact that it was able to leverage cutting-edge mobile telephony to leap ahead such that, as of 2020, most Africa countries have leveraged the same technology to outpace the United States in mobile banking. Proposals to introduce electronic voting solutions elicit various fears, especially those of rigging through a hack of the system. While these are valid fears, they are not as profound as the myriad of risks involved with paper votes across Africa. All voting methods are imbued with inherent risks that can be fundamentally damaging to the voting outcomes. The challenge for Africa is to identify the optimal technology

40 Enikolopov, R., Korovkin, V., Petrova, M., Sonin, K. and Zakharov, A., 2013. Field experiment estimate of electoral fraud in Russian parliamentary elections. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(2), pp.448-452.

Page 30 of 33 Patrick O. Okigbo III REBUILDING THE FALLING HOUSE Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Technology Innovation and Africa’s Renaissance Harvard Kennedy School (December 2020 Meeting) solution that addresses the most pertinent election integrity issues including the shared global concerns for electoral fraud, corruption, coercion, and inclusivity (of people with disabilities, illiterates, and those living in difficult to access locations). The solution should address the Africa-specific issues of lack of access to electricity, insufficient financial resources to procure costly technology, and local capacity to support the technology. Africa must be bold to leverage technology innovations that address these challenges. Politicians like Osita Chidoka, who have suffered from election day woes, know that this is their only hope of legitimately representing the will of the people. It is also an effective bulwark against soldiers whose fingers may be itchy as they see the continued failures of the civilian ruling class.

Encrypted Voices This section would be used to lay out a manifesto on how African governments can adopt mobile-phone voting to effectively transfer power to the people. Mobile phones are ubiquitous in Africa with over three-quarters of the population with at least a SIM connection. More Africans can vote in all elections from wherever they may be on the continent no matter how remote. It will eliminate the challenges of exclusion (for illiterates, people with disabilities, and those in remote locations). The solution is most-affordable compared to all other options. It will improve the ease of registration and voting without the long queues. It will retire the political thugs who engage in ballot box stuffing and voter coercion. Indeed, participation in elections across Africa should see the same level of participation and excitement as is recorded with the Big Brother Naija television show. Fears of rigging or hacking are legitimate but are not more profound than the myriad of risks involved with paper votes, lever machines, punch card machines or direct recording electronic machines. According to Alvarez and Hall (2008), ‘all forms of voting carry inherent risks of problems, as a single procedural misstep can create an array of potential issues for voters.’ Notwithstanding, this section will provide the latest debates around hacking risks and latest technologies to address them. Application of blockchain technology to voting offers significant promise. The technology enables a system of recording information in such a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system. It is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across an entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. This format makes it difficult for anyone to hack the system. This section of the chapter will outline the latest ideas and how a voting system built on this technology is promising for Africa.

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A proposed framework for the technology solution will be outlined in this section with special emphasis on security at every stage in the process: voter verification and authentication, voting and receipt of evidence of votes, automated collation and tabulation of results, evidence of votes sent to the voter and all parties involved in the elections, auditability of the results without a reliance on paper, and many other elements. It will also discuss independence of the election management board and the use of open software for the voting. The chapter will conclude that Africa can leverage available and affordable technology to improve voting outcomes and set off the process of inclusive political institutions that will birth the inclusive economic institutions. Such technologies will relax the asphyxiating choke of the political elite on the people. If Okonkwo lived today, he probably would not have to commit the murder nor die by suicide.

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Patrick O. Okigbo III [email protected]

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