We have to go back to our traditional ways of solving our problems, traditional ways of working together. Otherwise, Boosaaso [a port in war-torn Somalia] would not have peace. -- Geneneral Mohamed Abshir, Boosaaso's de facto administrator in The Washington Post, 3 March 1996, A29. ____________________

Unfortunately, the leadership that took over from the departing colonial authorities did not go back to our past to revive and revitalize our democratic roots. They took the line of least resistance and convenience and continued with despotism, autocracy, and authoritarianism. But the basic democratic culture is still there. -- Adebayo Adedeji, former executive secretary of U.N. Economic Commission for Africa and director of the African Center for Development and Strategic Studies in Nigeria in Africa Report, November/December 1993, 58. ______________________

The Japanese, Chinese, and Indians still maintain their roots, and they are thriving as nations. Africa embraces foreign cultures at the expense of its own, and this is why nothing seems to work for us. -- E. F. Kolajo of Thoyandou, South Africa in New African, February 1995, 4. _______________________

It is an enduring myth not only among Westerners but also, shamefully, among African leaders that Africa had no viable institutions of its own before the European colonialists arrived. The primary source of this myth is the confusion between the existence of an institution and different forms of the same institution. For example, a mall and bazaar are different forms of the same institution: the market. The fact that malls do not exist in African villages does not mean the market as an institution is unknown in Africa. Neither does the absence of hamburger in the diet of Africans mean that they do not eat.

It can be stated categorically that the European colonialists introduced no new institutions into Africa -- only different and more efficient forms of already existing institutions. The institution of money is one example. The Europeans introduced paper currency, while Africans had been using a variety of commodity money, such as gold dust, cowrie shells, and salt. Thus, the Europeans did not invent the institution of money in Africa although the paper currency they introduced may have been more efficient than salt in purchasing a cow, for example. In the same vein, the Europeans did not invent the institution of marriage, democracy, or even imperialism; there were empires, kingdoms, and states in Africa before the advent of colonialism.

Native African Governments
Despite awesome diversity, there were striking similarities among the ways Africans governed themselves. There existed two main distinct types of indigenous political organization, with further differentiation within each. The first type, tribal groupings, existed as separate political entities and governed themselves independently. Of these tribes, some were led by chiefs and others were not. Tribes with chiefs and their attendant administrative and judicial institutions were referred to as chiefdoms or states. Tribes that dispensed with chiefs but governed themselves peacefully were called stateless societies.

In the second type, imperial rule, some conquered tribes came under the hegemony of others, as in kingdoms and empires. This type also included two discernible political subcultures. The first, the most common, type of indirect rule afforded the vassal states extensive local independence or autonomy, as in the Asante and Zande empires of the nineteenth century. The second type of imperial rule required the vassal states to assimilate an allegedly superior foreign culture. Notable examples included the Mandinka, Fulani, Hausa, or, in general, the Islamic empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in West Africa. This was rule by assimilation.

In virtually all the African tribes, political organization of both types began at the village level. The village was made up of various extended families or lineages. Each had its head, chosen according to its own rules. In general, there were as many as four basic units of government in African societies which governed themselves. The first was the chief, the central authority. The second was the inner or privy council, which advised the chief. The third was the council of elders. If there were ten lineages in a village, for example, their heads would form a ten-member council of elders. The fourth institution was the village assembly of commoners, also called the village meeting.

What follows is a brief description of governance in chiefdoms. More extensive discussions can be found in Ayittey (1991) and Boamah-Wiafe (1993).

Chiefdoms
African societies that ruled themselves had all four units of government: a chief, an inner council, a council of elders, and a village assembly. Tribes that had chiefs included the Fanti of Ghana, the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Mossi of Burkina Faso, the Swazi, and the Zulu of South Africa. In most cases, the chief was a male. He was the political, social, judicial, and religious head of the tribe. As such, he had wide-ranging powers.

The chief usually was assisted in governance by a small group of confidential advisers called the inner, or privy, council. Membership was not limited but was drawn mainly from the inner circle of the chief's relatives and personal friends, who may have included influential members of the community. The inner council served as the first test for legislation. The chief would privately and informally discuss with the inner council all matters relating to the administration of the tribe. He might consult his advisers severally or jointly to form an opinion before bringing an issue to the people.

After the chief had raised an issue with his inner council, he might take it to the council of elders. This was a much wider and more formal body comprising all the hereditary headmen of the wards or lineages; in essence, the council of elders represented the commoners.

In matters of serious consequence, the chief had to summon all members of the council of elders. Such matters included additional tributes, market tolls, proposed new laws, declarations of war, and serious quarrels. The chief presided over this council and sought its opinion. Essentially, the council of elders had two functions: to advise and assist the chief in the administration of the tribe and to prevent the chief from abusing his power by voicing its dissatisfaction, criticizing the chief, and keeping him under necessary control.

Under normal governance, the chief would inform the council of elders of the issue to be dealt with, and those wishing to do so would then debate it. Routine matters were resolved by acclamation. Complex matters would be debated until the council reached unanimity. Decisions so reached were sure of acceptance by the rest of the tribe since the councilors were influential members of the community.

Generally, the chief would remain silent and watch the councilors debate. His role was to weigh all viewpoints, not to impose his decision on the council; doing so would defeat the purpose of the council's debates. The chief did not rule; he only led and assessed the council's opinions. If the council could not reach unanimity on a contested issue, the chief would call a village assembly to put the issue before the people for debate. Thus the people served as the ultimate judge or final authority on disputed issues.

Village meetings began with the chief explaining the purpose of the meeting. He would not announce any decision reached in council meetings; he would merely state the facts involved and order discussions to begin. His advisers would open the debate and would be followed by headmen or elders. Then anyone else wishing to speak or ask questions might do so. These deliberations continued until a consensus was reached. In such a process of consensus-building, minority positions are not only heard but also taken into account. In a majority-rule process, on the other hand, a minority position can be ignored. Consensus is far more difficult to reach on many issues, and that was one reason why African political tradition is noted for the length of time, sometimes days and even weeks, it took to reach a consensus. But once reached, there was unity of purpose since all participated in the decision-making process. Note that consensus, by its very nature, is the antithesis of autocracy. One cannot impose one's will in a system that is traditionally structured to reach decisions by consensus. Thus despotism does not inhere in the African political tradition. Freedom of expression was an important element of village assemblies. Anyone -- even those who were not members of the tribe -- could express his views freely. Sensible proposals or ideas often were applauded, and inappropriate ones were vocally opposed. Dissent was open and free, with due respect to the chief. Many African tribes -- especially the Igbo, Yoruba, Ga, Asante, and Abesheini -- fiercely defended the right to free speech. Chiefs did not incarcerate those who held different opinions because the collective survival of the tribe, not the chief's individual survival, was at stake.

Checks Against the Powers of the Chief
In theory, the African chief wielded vast powers -- which led many observers to characterize him as autocratic. But in day-to-day administration and legislation, the chief rarely made policy. He only led -- an important distinction. Chiefs and kings were not above the law and had to obey customary laws and taboos. That is, the rule of customary law prevailed. In some tribes, the king was not to venture out of his palace into town except under the cover of darkness. The king was never to speak to his people directly, except through a spokesperson (okyeame as in the case of the Akan). The Akan chief or king was forbidden to meet with any foreigner except in the presence of a member of the council of elders.

Some of these injunctions in traditional Africa were intended to enhance the sanctity of the office. But there were others which were clearly designed to check despotic tendencies and misuse of power. The African chief was no despot and was surrounded by various bodies and institutions to prevent an abuse of power and corruption. A chief with despotic tendencies was first reminded of the oath he took upon assumption of power. For example, when the Krontihene of the Ashanti (Ghana) is installed, he is admonished thus: "Do not go after women. Do not become a drunkard. When we give you advice, listen to it. Do not gamble. We do not want you to disclose the origin of your subjects. We do not want you to abuse us. We do not want you to be miserly; we do not want one who disregards advice; we do not want you to regard us as fools; we do not want autocratic ways; we do not want bullying; we do not like beating. Take the Stool. We bless the Stool and give it to you" (Busia, 1951, 12). Any violations could result in immediate destoolment (removal from office).

In many African tribes, it was also the duty of the queen-mother to scold and rebuke the chief for transgressions. If she failed in this duty, she herself could be destooled. The next check was the inner or privy council of advisers. If a chief persisted in his despotic ways, the advisers might abandon him. If this check failed, the third line of defense was the council of elders, which could destool the chief. If the council of elders failed to do so, the people would "vote with their feet" (migrate) and abandon the despotic chief. The African chief was appointed to rule for life. He did not appoint himself. But he could be removed at any time -- not after, say, four years -- if he was corrupt or failed to govern according to the will of the people -- and so he can be even in modern times.

Consider the fate of Nana Ekwam VIII, chief of Gomoa Ekwamkrom of Ghana. The elders of the town convened a meeting and summoned the chief to account for a sum of 780,000 cedis (about $600) -- being 572,000 cedis from land sales and 258,529 cedis the chief is alleged to have withdrawn from the town's bank account. As The Mirror (6 January 1996) reported,

The chief stood up and replied that he had nothing to pay to the town and denied making any previous promise to pay. The Obaahema [queen-mother] of the town, Okomfo Asaba, then stood up to address the meeting and drew the attention of the chief to their last meeting in October, 1995 where he made the pledge.

Nana Ekwam shouted the old woman down and called her a liar. He said he was not at that meeting because was attending to a sick aunt. Almost immediately, a voice from the gathering asked "which aunt" and the chief replied "your mother."

The meeting from then on degenerated into verbal exchanges but matters came to a hilt when the chief delivered his bombshell of the Akan profanity: "All of you, your mothers' genitals." There was a brief silence and the chief walked out of the meeting in anger. But before he could turn in the direction of his palace a group of young men, numbering over 20, knocked him down and removed his cloth and sandals." (1)

In Akan culture, the chief's bare feet never touch the ground. The removal of his sandals, therefore, constituted destoolment. Native African Empires And Kingdoms While independent tribes governed themselves with or without chiefs, other tribes were subject to imperial rule by their conquerors. Differences in imperial rule generally lay in the degree of autonomy conquerors granted to the subjugated tribes. At one end of the spectrum were the Islamic empires such as the Mandinka, which made conscious efforts to supplant existing cultures by forcing subjugated tribes to assimilate into an allegedly superior culture. At the other end were the Asante and the Zande, who adopted a policy of indirect rule by according the traditional rulers of the subjugated tribes extensive autonomy.

The internal structure of the Asante empire was one of confederacy. A confederation is a rather loose form of political association in which the constituent states retain significant autonomy from the central authority. In a unitary state, virtually all powers are concentrated in the center. Apparently confederation was quite widespread on the former Gold Coast in the nineteenth century. Beyond the Gold Coast, there existed other kingdoms and empires with remarkably similar political structures. Strong centralized rule was exceptional in sub-Saharan (black) Africa; poor communications made it difficult to prevent states from breaking away.

Only a few African kingdoms and empires, such as sixteenth-century Benin and nineteenth-century Zulu, were able to impose a strong centralized rule. In the Hausa states, however, there was a trend, often promoted by the influence of Islam, toward greater power at the center with closer control over official positions and the establishment of servile standing armies. But empires that attempted to achieve centralization by military force, crumbled as rapidly as they were built. For example, the Oyo empire collapsed in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Akwamu in the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century, and the Zulu empire in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The tendency of many tribes to decentralize government by delegating authority and responsibilities to local entities and by instituting a complex system of checks and balances to curb autocracy evidenced their fear of tyranny. In central Africa, delegation of the king's authority usually amounted to delegation of almost all authority save religious--and on a few occasions, even religious authority was delegated (Bohannan, 1964, 192).

Monarchical divinity is often confused with either absolutism or tyranny. In the African scheme of kingship, despotism could not be reconciled with the traditional role of the king. The Asante king appeared absolute, yet he had to procure the consent of the chiefs to bring about group action. The Zulu king could make no decisions of national importance without the ibandla, the highest council of state (Olivier, 1969). Similarly, in the kingdom of Swaziland the authority of the Swazi king, Ngwenyama--chosen by the Ndovukazi (queen mother)--was checked by the Liqoqo (inner council) and the Libandla (general council).

If a ruler committed a very grave offense, he was dethroned. The Asante people destooled three kings: Osei Kwame in 1799 for, among other reasons, absenting himself from Kumasi and failing to perform his religious duties during the Adae festivals; Karikari in 1874 for extravagance, among other failings; and Mensa Bonsu in 1883 for excessively taxing the Asante people. Many other destoolments occurred among the Akan and Ga peoples as well as other tribes. Each tribe had its own procedures for divestiture. While the Serer tribe of Senegal adopted a distinctive drumbeat to signal the end of a king's reign, the Yoruba of Nigeria demanded the king's suicide by a symbolic gift of parrot's eggs.

Native African Governance: An Assessment
Once again, note that the African "village meeting under a big tree" and the European "parliament" were simply different forms of the same institution of democracy. What Africans had was participatory democracy. The Europeans introduced parliamentary democracy. A unique characteristic of Africa's indigenous system of government was that it was open and inclusive. No one was locked out of the decision-making process. One did not have to belong to one political party or family to participate in the process. Even foreigners were allowed participation -- the principle of inclusiveness. For example, in the 16th century, King Alfonso of of the Kingdom of Kongo had Portuguese advisers. Among them were Alvare Lopez, Muel Pacheco and Francisco Barbudo. They represented the Portuguese segment of the resident population and even acquired a seat on the electoral college.

Further, the chief did not declare the village to be a one-party state, or did he impose an alien ideology on his people. At village meetings, the people expressed their views freely, which was vital for consensus to be reached. No one was arrested or detained for disagreeing with the chief.

Second, larger political entities -- empires and kingdoms -- were governed upon the confederacy principle or marked by extensive devolution of authority. Local communities enjoyed the substantial autonomy to run their own affairs, which partly explains why over 2,000 distinct tribes remain in Africa today. _________________

REFERENCES

Ayittey, George B.N. (1991). Indigenous African Institutions. Dobbs
Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers.

Boamah-Wiafe, Daniel (1993). Africa: The Land, People, and Cultural
Institutions. Omaha, NB: Wisdom 	Publications.


Olivier, N. J. J. (1969). "The Governmental Institutions of the Bantu
Peoples of Southern Africa" in
	Recueils de la Societies Jean Bodin XII. Bruxelles: Fondation
Universitaire de Belgique.

Native African Governance: An Assessment
Once again, note that the African "village meeting under a big tree" and the European "parliament" were simply different forms of the same institution of democracy. What Africans had was participatory democracy. The Europeans introduced parliamentary democracy. A unique characteristic of Africa's indigenous system of government was that it was open and inclusive. No one was locked out of the decision-making process. One did not have to belong to one political party or family to participate in the process. Even foreigners were allowed participation -- the principle of inclusiveness. For example, in the 16th century, King Alfonso of of the Kingdom of Kongo had Portuguese advisers. Among them were Alvare Lopez, Muel Pacheco and Francisco Barbudo. They represented the Portuguese segment of the resident population and even acquired a seat on the electoral college. ******************************************************************************

Further, the chief did not declare the village to be a one-party state, or did he impose an alien ideology on his people. At village meetings, the people expressed their views freely, which was vital for consensus to be reached. No one was arrested or detained for disagreeing with the chief. ******************************************************************************

Second, larger political entities -- empires and kingdoms -- were governed upon the confederacy principle or marked by extensive devolution of authority. Local communities enjoyed the substantial autonomy to run their own affairs, which partly explains why over 2,000 distinct tribes remain in Africa today. _________________ ******************************************************************************

REFERENCES

Ayittey, George B.N. (1991). Indigenous African Institutions. Dobbs
Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers.

Boamah-Wiafe, Daniel (1993). Africa: The Land, People, and Cultural
Institutions. Omaha, NB: Wisdom 	Publications.


Olivier, N. J. J. (1969). "The Governmental Institutions of the Bantu
Peoples of Southern Africa" in
	Recueils de la Societies Jean Bodin XII. Bruxelles: Fondation
Universitaire de Belgique.