Ghana, Nigeria and Gabon
By: Sebastian Lamontagne
Tags: Democratic Transition, Nigeria, Africa, Ghana, Democracy

Ghana, Nigeria and Gabon

Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash

Since it’s transition to multi-party elections in 1992 Ghana has built a democracy that is now hailed as durable and as an example for Africa to follow. African states post-independence have long been associated with corruption and “the personified rule of ‘big men’ who sought to cultivate authority through a logic of loyalty and deference in exchange for unity, order and development” (Lynch, Crawford 282, 282). Post-independence Africa has struggled with resource mismanagement and failed democratic reforms. Many states have been unable to deliver public goods. And there are repeated instances, across the African continent, of “the one-party state, forms of personalised rule, the incidence of military coups, or the use of coercion and more or less extreme forms of violence to sustain political power” (Williams 404).

According to the Democracy Index, only one African country is a full democracy, while eight are in the flawed democracy category, fifteen are hybrid regimes and 26 are authoritarian regimes. Why are so many African states struggling? In some African countries the problem is a severely underfunded state and a tiny GDP. But in others, the issue isn’t a lack of resources, it’s resource mismanagement. For instance, Nigeria, an oil rich country, has consistently found itself in a hole economically, because of its history of patrimonialism which has made corruption in the government widespread and all too easy to get away with.

In 1980, Nigeria’s oil revenue hit an astonishing $12 billion. But vultures descended. Contracts were handed out for massive construction projects, and more often than not the money invested would wind up in the pockets of the official who had granted the contract (Diamond 241). Nigeria is one of Africa’s two wealthiest economies. It also has the most people living in poverty. And Nigeria lags behind other African countries in term of life expectancy and on the Human Development Index. Large African countries tend to fare worse than smaller ones, and this may have something to do with Nigeria’s problems as well. A proliferation of ethnic groups, and their shared resentment for one another, has made Nigeria’s elections difficult to navigate (Diamond 245–246).

Money has made it possible for Nigeria’s corrupt officials to stay in power despite their widespread unpopularity. Aid money is a huge and necessary resource for many African countries. But officials often seize on aid money as a means of self-enrichment. And like oil money it sets up a worrying paradigm whereby government officials are able to sustain themselves with money that is disconnected from the labor of the vast majority of Africans. The money that African officials get rich off of is not contingent on the labor of the Africans who they are supposed to serve, leaving them in a position of unaccountable power.

This is sometimes called a neo-patrimonial state, and it is a system wherein an individual or a few select individuals sit at the top of a vast beauractric web of bribes and backdoor dealings all lubricated with cash. The strongman leader is a great example of this. Cash flows down from him, to his closest associates and then to their associates and so on (Diamond 247).

The phenomenon of resource rich countries going off the rails is well documented enough that there is a name for this sort of thing. It’s called the resource curse. The resource curse is a hypothesis employed by some academics. According to the resource curse theory, developing states with an overflow of resources are “more prone to bad governance, corruption and rent seeking behaviour” while money that should go towards public goods ends up “in the hands of a small and very exclusive elite” (Kopiński, Polus, Tycholiz, 584). Even the channels and branches of government designed to help deliver public goods are co-opted by the elite.

After getting involved in the oil industry Gabon relied on oil money to an unhealthy extent, neglecting agriculture which had previously accounted for a great deal of mass employment. The oil industry could not and did not compensate, and widespread joblessness resulted. In 2004, Gabon had to import nearly 90 percent of it’s food. Estimates show that Gabon is among the most economically unequal countries in the world (King, 8–9). And when countries become reliant to this extent on oil, they are also putting themselves at the mercy of a highly spontaneous and fluctuating market, which can leave them in a place of uncertainty.

In Gabon, government officials and those involved with the oil industry used the influx of cash to distribute favors among their friends and allies, and to secure the support of certain groups in the country. These favors included: “the selective awarding of business licenses, jobs in the civil service, payment of large off budget ‘bonuses’, and fuel and water subsidies for select groups. Even the disastrously expensive Transgabonese railway in Gabon was identified by some to be a form of neo-patrimonialism after it was diverted to reach President Bongo’s loyal Batéke tribe in the southeast” (King, 11).

In many multi-ethnic countries, not just in Africa, there is a tendency for certain predictable voting behaviours to develop. Ethnic groups tend to vote for people who come from their own ethnic group, and who have a sense of in-group attachment. This stems from, and ultimately reinforces, stigma towards out-groups, who are often distrusted. Once voted into office, these co-ethnics will then go on to favor the group they came from. In a neopatrimonial state they may give out public service jobs as well as constructing schools and roads to gain the lasting loyalty of their ethnic group. Because of its history with patrimonialism and ethnic conflict, patronage politics in Africa are often divided by ethnicity. There is a desire, on the part of majority ethnic groups, for elected officials to share their language and perceived common identity (Hoffman, Long 129).

In industrialized democracy, there is a tendency for voters to be socialized into certain parties, to which they will often remain loyal. Even when parties shift on the issues, voters will stick with them. However, when the economy is doing badly, opposition candidates usually come into power. When economic conditions remain stable or improve, incumbent candidates succeed.

Scholars make the case that in most African states, this is not how elections play out. Voters primary loyalty lies not with specific parties/ideologies, but with their ethnic groups. And in states where specific parties have formed a hegemony, opposition parties rarely catch on. This means that many Africans are voting purely based on ethnicity. And hegemonic party control in some countries has allowed parties to appear more credible and effective than they actually are, because of their suppression of performance data (Hoffman, Long 130–132).

In Gabon, bribery made elections incredibly undemocratic, with the states resources being used to protect the power of President Bongo’s Parti Démocratique Gabonais (PDG). And citizens found themselves stripped of one major form of protest, i.e. the refusal to pay taxes, because of the fact that Gabon’s government was able to support itself with oil money. In 1986 following a drop in oil prices, Gabon was forced to make some democratic reforms.

The drop in oil prices put the country in crisis, illustrating how fragile neo-patrimonial systems that rely on oil money can really be. In Gabon jobs in the civil service were used as rewards for various favors. In the 1980s and 1990s, the number of people employed in Gabon’s civil service exploded, and wages for civil servants grew. In Angola, which is similar to Gabon in it’s reliance on oil, most of the education budget goes towards funding education abroad for children of establishment members, while the health budget was also co-opted for the wealthy and powerful, a significant amount of it even going towards evacuation plans for the elites (King 12–14).

And in Gabon, civil society was crushed beneath the neo-patrimonial state. Much of civil society relied on government funding, and until 1991 women’s and youth groups, as well as trade unions and many other organizations existed within the PDG, which was the only legal party prior to 1990 (King, 15).

It is not always easy to tell when a country is a true democracy. Political elites have found that in order to appear legitimate in the eyes of international observers they must perform all the motions of a liberal democracy. However, behind the scenes, it is very easy for elites to maintain their grasp on power through the use of various tactics of suppression. Even though Gabon has attempted reforms, it is still ranked as an authoritarian state by the Democracy Index. Gabon has been forced to perform a semblance of democracy, holding hollow elections. And recently, in 2018, President Ali Bongo Ondimba abolished term limits through a constitutional change, effectively allowing him to rule for life. On-top of this, the constitution was changed from stating that the President should rule “in consultation with the government” to say that the President shall “determine the policy of the nation” (Kiwuwa).

Ali Bongo Ondimba has succeeded his father Omar Bongo Ondimba, who was president of Gabon for 42 years, and who opened up the country for multi-party elections. Ondimba senior took advantage of Gabon’s oil wealth, and became a powerful patron to the country’s elite, creating careers and endowing his allies with great wealth. Despite the fact that the country suffered under his rule, Ondimba senior was succeeded by his son a mere four months after his death in 2009 (Kiwuwa).

Some pointed to the ousting of authoritarian leaders such as in Zimbabwe, Angola, Gambia and Burkina Faso to argue that Ali Bongo Ondimba will not be able to hold onto power for much longer, as Africa is moving away from dictators and strongman leaders. After a controversial election in 2016, the stage was set for some kind of violent opposition to form.

This came to fruition in 2019, while the President was receiving medical treatment in Morocco, a military coup took place in the city of Libreville. The coup was led by Lieutenant Kelly Ondo Obiang, who stated in a radio address that he and the military were unsatisfied with Ali Bongo’s performance as President, accusing him of “a relentless attempt to cling onto power” and promising to create a “National Restoration Council…[for] restoring democracy.” Obiang announced that “the eagerly awaited day has arrived when the army has decided to put itself on the side of the people in order to save Gabon from chaos” and called for Gabon’s citizens to rise up against Ali Bongo with a command to “Wake up your neighbours … rise up as one and take control of the street.” On 7, January military forces that supported the coup soon deployed throughout the capital, armed and backed up with armored vehicles. It took mere hours for the rebel fighters to be crushed, and for Gabon’s security minister to announce that the rebels were under arrest and the situation was under control (Maclean).

Ghana has also faced down the resource curse, but it seems to have done so without falling victim to predictable traps. In 2007 an oil field containing 0.6 to 1.8 billion barrels of oil was located 60 kilometers off Ghana’s shores, between Deepwater Tano and West Cape Three Points (Crawford, Hartman 61). Ghana’s ability to avoid the resource curse can likely be attributed to Ghana’s robust elections, which act as a system of accountability by which politicians can be held accountable, and which were in place before Ghana became oil rich. Unlike Nigeria or Gabon, Ghana’s democracy and election system predated it’s discovery of oil.

In 2008, Ghana had a historic, tense presidential election in which the NDC (National Democratic Party) claimed victory over the NPP (New Patriotic Party) with a margin of just one percentage point. The Electoral Commission of Ghana was praised for its professional and well regulated handling of such a contentious election (Hoffman, Long 129).

As mentioned previously, co-ethnic voting is common in many African states. But Ghana’s voters seem to be casting their votes based on a much more complex set of deciding factors. Before the 2008 election, it was theorized that the Asante voted for the NPP and the Ewe were loyal to the NDC. The NPP appealed to business interests in southern and central Ghana, regions dominated by the Asante. The NPP also made room for Ashanti chiefs in its chain of command. The Ewe were theorized to support the NDC, because the NDC was founded by an Ewe named Jerry Rawlings who led a military junta, before being democratically elected in 1992. However, there is still 72 percent of Ghanaians who are not Asante or Ewe and their party loyalty is a little more complicated.

Prior to the 2008 election, it was thought that there were reliable ethnic alliances, coalition that tended to vote either for the NDC or the NPP. But there is evidence in the 2008 elections of a shift away from ethnic voting. Even if all the supposed ethnic alliances are tallied up, this still leaves more than half of voters without clear ethnic affiliation with either the NDC or NPP, possessing no meaningful ethnically based alliances with either party. Which means that it is possible these people voted for reasons unrelated to ethnicity. And studies of the 2008 election that have been conducted since have shown that voters were, at the very least somewhat influenced by ideological and economic factors, not merely by ethnicity, which played a much smaller role than might previously have been suspected. (Hoffman, Long 130–131).

Beginning in 1992, Ghana has been holding elections every four years. But it wasn’t easy for Ghana to get where it is today. In 1981 a coup led by Rawlings brought down The Third Republic of Ghana and replaced it with the Provisional National Defense Council, subjecting Ghana to military rule. In preparation for the 1992 elections Rawlings created the National Democratic Congress. The elections were extremely controversial. The presidential and parliamentary elections were held on separate days, and suspicions that Rawling was re-elected unfairly caused the NPP to lose faith in the parliamentary elections as well, ultimately boycotting them (Whitfield 621).

Rawlings ultimately stepped down, as he was required to do so by his term limit. And in 2000 The NDC lost to NPP by a narrow margin, and the NPP had to negotiate with small parties and lone wolf independents as they set about forming a parliamentary majority. In 2008, the election turned into a runoff and the NDC regained power when John Atta Mills became president with a narrow lead of 40,586 votes. There were nine million total votes cast (Whitfield 622).

In 2008, the NDC and NPP cemented the two party system by pulling in more voters from disintegrating smaller parties. The two parties are in stark contrast. Their voters are divided by ethnicity and region, and by social status. Key to elections in Ghana are the swing regions which base their vote not off of ethnicity but off of economic concerns and perceived government performance, and which can vote for either party. Ghana’s democracy is monitored by “an independent Electoral Commission and transparent electoral processes” while the political elites have “norms and institutions structuring their behavior” (Whitfield 623).

Ghana has also come up with a clever way of distributing resources. When a politician is elected to parliament, money is set aside which they can tap into to aid their constituency in whatever way they see fit. In 2012 this pool of money consisted of US $43,000, combined with a salary of US $24,000. As of 2012, that was considered very good money in Ghana. And Presidents can choose to give out even more resources to the MPs, by nominating them for various government roles (Ichino, Nathan 178).

In conclusion, Ghana’s saving grace has been a strong set of norms and institutions surrounding elections, which have allowed it to both negotiate ethnic conflict and hold politicians accountable, avoiding institutionalized corruption and dodging the resource curse. Ghana’s two party system has forced ethnic coalitions to form, and though co-ethnic voting is certainly present in Ghana, it is not the sole predictor of party allegiance.

In fact, ideology and economic issues play a much larger role than ethnic identification. The main factor which sets Ghana apart from other African states, such as Gabon and Nigeria which have succumbed to neopatrimonialism, is that strong institutions existed in the country prior to a ready supply of resources, and those institutions have proved more durable than any single selfish individual. Moreover, Ghana has diversified its economy outside of oil, which means that although rural poverty may still be high, Ghana has not met the same fate as Gabon or Nigeria in terms of mass unemployment. The most important factor, therefor, in Ghana’s success has been the arrival of strong institutions before the discovery of plentiful resources.

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