This is new territory in the history of subjugation. Typically, it is sufficient if the vassal state pays tax to the master nation sacrificing it's own citizens, but being used as a proxy against a third state is totally new. Nigeria attempting to intervene in Benin under Macron's orders is totally unprecedented territory.
The present debate about democracy in Africa illuminates a critical dilemma: the persistence of a political framework in Africa that is largely derivative, adopted without sufficient interrogation of its congruence with indigenous socio-political realities. This transplantation has frequently entailed the marginalization of endogenous systems of communal accountability and participatory leadership, supplanting them with structures characterized by clientelism, patrimonialism, and the dominance of political “godfathers.” Consequently, a cyclical pattern emerges, wherein periods of civilian rule, often marred by ineffective governance, alternate with military interventions, perpetuating a state of political instability.
A fundamental rupture of this cycle necessitates a reconceptualization of political recruitment, anchoring its origins in local communities—towns and villages—where the character and efficacy of aspiring leaders can be genuinely assessed. Sustainable transformation, therefore, demands a deliberate project of political redesign: constructing democratic models consciously centred on African historical experiences, epistemological logics, and the active agency of its people. Such an authentic political renaissance must be intrinsically grassroots in its genesis and orientation.
