Between Democratic Promises and Socio-Political Realities: The Challenges of Political Representation in Ghana and Nigeria A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Bernard A. Forjwuor June 2009 © 2009 Bernard A. Forjwuor. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Between Democratic Promises and Socio-Political Reality: The Challenges of Political Representation in Ghana and Nigeria by BERNARD A. FORJWUOR has been approved for the Department of Political Science and the College of Arts and Sciences by Dauda Abubakar Assistant Professor of Political Science Benjamin M. Ogles Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 Abstract FORJWUOR, BERNARD A., M.A., June 2009, Political Science Between Democratic Promises and Socio-Political Reality: The Challenges of Political Representation in Ghana and Nigeria (147 pp.) Director of Thesis: Dauda Abubakar This comparative study explores the intersection between the perversion of representative political systems in Ghana and Nigeria and the performance of resistance. It draws heavily on psychoanalytical theory (as well as structuralism and constructivism) to understand how the burdens of colonial legacies and elite fantasies overwhelm the present representative democratic arrangements. From these theoretical lenses, the study further explore how these perverted political system legitimizes the marginalization of citizens and encourages the hijack of political spaces by elites. I concluded that the encroachment of public political space by elites trigger a resistive response from marginalized citizens. Approved: _____________________________________________________________ Dauda Abubakar Assistant Professor of Political Science 4 Dedication To my mother, Rebecca Noi The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone Psalm 118:22 5 Acknowledgments Indeed, this is how far God has brought me and I am extremely grateful for His mercies, which are renewed every morning. I thank you Lord for constantly assuring me that You have not brought me this far to disgrace me. Thank you Lord for your blessings, favors and protection. Also, Rhoda, you deserve many thanks for showing me so much love, care and encouraging me, which of course kept me on track whenever my life wanted to derail and keep me from finishing this thesis. You really deserve more thanks than I can give for always supporting me through all odds. Indeed, it is no more a cliché than a truth to say that if I have seen farther or come this far, is because I stood on the shoulders of giants. I am truly indebted to my committee members, Drs. Dauda Abubakar, Myra Waterbury, and Takaaki Suzuki, for their invaluable input and dedication to the completion of this thesis. To Dr. Abubakar, please accept my heartfelt gratitude for directing and chairing my thesis. Without your inspiration, mentorship, encouragement, advice, and guidance, this thesis could not have been completed. I also extend a sincere thanks to Drs. Myra Waterbury and Takaaki Suzuki for agreeing to serve on my committee and for offering important and insightful comments that consequently shaped my final text. Indeed, thank you for providing significant support, and inspiration in completing this thesis. Dr. Lisa Aubrey, who has moved on to Arizona State University, deserves thanks for mentoring me and nurturing my interest and passion in African politics. I owe her many thanks for her constant encouragements to aim for the best and her faith in my academic potential. 6 To Rhoda’s mother and aunty, I say a heartfelt thank you, for your endless love and constant support. Thank You. To Abiola Bankole, please accept my thanks for your demonstration of kindness and support. Thanks for being a good friend. And last, but not least, I am especially grateful for the patience and support I received from my family – my mother (Rebecca Noi), my aunt (Mercy) and uncles (Nii Noi and Daniel), my cousins – all of whom have made sacrifices to see me come this far. 7 Table of Contents Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Dedication ........................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... 5 List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... 8 List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter One: Introduction ................................................................................................ 10 Chapter Two: Literature Review and Theoretical Approaches ........................................ 27 Chapter Three: The Mode of Political of Representation in Ghana ................................. 58 Chapter Four: The Mode of Political Representation in Nigeria ...................................... 86 Chapter Five: Comparative Analysis: A Theoretical Claim ........................................... 119 Chapter Six: Conclusion ................................................................................................. 134 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 137 8 List of Tables Page Table 1: Turnout in Presidential Election, 1996 and 2000 ....................................................... 66 Table 2: Registered Voters by Region ......................................................................................... 67 Table 3: Regional Malapportionment of Constituencies .......................................................... 72 Table 4: Estimation for Election in Nigeria ............................................................................. 104 9 List of Figures Page Figure 1: Extend of Administrative Decentralization in Africa ............................................ 108 Figure 2: Extend of Fiscal Decentralization ............................................................................. 109 10 Chapter One: Introduction The 21st century political environment in post-colonial Africa has evolved from perpetual or repetitive dictatorial governance and has intermittently lurched into a pseudo- democratic polity, yet the once resisted lures of dictatorial political tendencies of liberal individuality and minimized collectivism, have now become ensconced within legitimate democratic practices. The burden of individualistic polity that often characterizes authoritarian regimes is now integral to the current liberal representative political practice to produce marginalized democratic citizens from avenues of political engagements. Growing popular discontent in post-colonial countries like Nigeria and Ghana, then, stems from these protected political practices that are now redefining citizenship away from its organic political origins—of participation and inclusion. Very troubling is this popular sense that the kind of representative political system in these countries merely pays lip services to popular prerogatives with little efforts at reforming political institutions to address these fundamental issues creating this pervasive sense of citizens’ alienation. In many cases, agency of democratic citizens in political matters has been subverted, yet constantly invoked to carry, while subtly deceptive, a symbolic significance of authorization and accountability. The displacement of public agency in these political processes has created a vacuum in which the notion of representation has legitimately emerged as functional and organic. The erection and politicization of representation in these political vacuums now provides justification for the absence of the public in politics. Representative institutions in these countries have emerged to replace or, as some pro-representative democrats will argue, complement forms of direct mode of political determinacy. While the idea of representative institutionalism has quickly acquired legitimacy as an inclusive system of political organization and an effective 11 medium of popular interest articulation, it conceptually runs counter to presumed promises of collectivism and collective determinacy inherent in the notion of democracy. However compelling and pervasive the institutional demands and designs in forcing the majority of democratic citizens to the margins of political life, writers like Hanna Pitkin (1967), are still convinced that political representation, in all cases, is an effective act of making present again citizens' voices, opinions, and perspectives in public policy making processes. Emerging scholarships on political representation have embraced Pitkin’s propositions and have insisted that representative institutions, thus indeed, encourage citizens’ participation in the political processes. This minimalist view of political representation in modern democratic scholarship recognize acts whereby the electorate select, through regular, multiparty political contestations, a leader who will represent their needs, as the bedrock in which, not only the very idea of representative democracy is massaged into popular consciousness, but also projected and exercised as inclusive and embodying collective action. While in many instances, a perfect