Democracy, good governance and development in Africa

Cover -- Title page -- Copyright page -- List of Contributors -- Contents -- Good Governance, Democracy and Sustainable Development in Africa. An Introduction -- Introduction -- A Guide to the Chapters -- Chapter One - Envisioning African Democracy in the Twenty-First Century: Mwana washe muranda kumwe and the Coloniality of Contrived "Democracy" -- Introduction -- Democracy and mwana washe muranda kumwe: The paradoxes and inversions in coloniality -- The local, the global and Mwana washe muranda kumwe: are visit of some epistemological and ontological aspects -- References -- Chapter Two - Towards a United States of Africa: Concepts, Issues, and Methodologies -- Introduction -- A United States of Africa: An ever-longed idea? -- Enlivening the idea of a united Africa -- Rising above ethnicity and cultural difference for unity -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter Three - African Democracy Vis-A-Vis Western Democracy: Afrikenticating, Follyfying, Expibasketizing, and Reversing the "African Democracy" Debate -- Introduction -- The folly in "African democracy": Roles of expibasketism and intellectualism -- The HISOFE Independence Messages from Pretoria/Bamako-Kigali -- The real meaning of "Western democracy": The colonizers' club? -- One-Percent Enslavement of Ninety-Nine Percent -- The Maximizing and Walt-Marting of Human Automatons -- The Obamacaring Exceptionalsm in America -- On Lielisticalism (on/from Africa): The Forest Snake-Mosquito and Other Shitting Narratives -- The No-Shitting Theory -- The Poisonous-Snake Thesis -- The Mosquito Narrative -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter Four - Mandela and Coloniality in South Africa -- Introduction -- Profiling Mandela -- 'Saint' Madiba -- Sanitised Transformation, Wretched Lives, Shattered Hopes, and the Mandela Legacy -- Theorising Coloniality.

Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socio-economically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and maledictious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions on why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa's diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa's multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent's long-standing political and socio-economic quandaries and hitches. Contributions are by African scholars and researchers from different disciplinary orientations and countries. Grounded in empirical reality as well as the lived experiences of the contributors, the book is an invaluable asset for social scientists, development practitioners, politicians and civil society activists