Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the presidential candidate of Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peter Obi have questioned the democracy being practiced in Nigeria and other African countries, saying that institutions of government required overhaul.

Speaking separately at the ongoing 2026 Goodluck Jonathan Foundation Democracy Dialogue held at the International Conference Centre, Bauchi, Obasanjo said that “there is nothing like African Democracy” but a liberal democracy handed over to the continent by the colonial masters.

The former President said true democracy does not require a judiciary.

Also, Obi challenged the arms of government to take their positions in democratic system by holding the power to account. Lamenting on the electoral process, Obi said that Nigeria’s democracy requires total overhaul.

According to him, Nigeria cannot develop its democracy where “professors are rigging elections for the illiterate, traditional leaders are defending criminals, senior advocates of Nigeria (SAN) defending fraud and judges are singing on your mandate.”

The Conference, themed: “Beyond elections: can political parties and the judiciary save African democracy”.

The Executive Director, Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, Ms. Ann Iyonu, said more than three decades after the wave of democratic transitions that swept across Africa in the 1990s, multi-party elections have become the accepted mechanism for political competition across much of the continent.

According to her, African states have conducted successive electoral cycles, witnessed peaceful transfers of power, and strengthened constitutional frameworks governing elections. Yet despite these gains, concerns about the quality, resilience, and effectiveness of democracy continue to grow. Across the continent, citizens are increasingly questioning whether elections alone are sufficient to deliver accountable governance, protect constitutional order, uphold the rule of law, and improve socio- economic outcomes.

“Recent findings by Afrobarometer reveal that while support for democracy remains relatively strong across Africa, public trust in democratic institutions has declined in many countries. The 2024 African Insights: Democracy at Risk – The People’s Perspective report notes that although two-thirds of Africans continue to prefer democracy over any other form of government, confidence in political institutions has weakened and support for democracy has declined over the past decade in several countries.”

She said that the report underscores growing public concerns regarding accountability, governance performance, and the integrity of democratic institutions.

She further said that one of the defining challenges confronting African democracies today is the tendency to equate democracy with the successful conduct of elections while paying insufficient attention to the institutions that sustain democratic governance between electoral cycles.