I once wrote in this publication about “localising” democracy, arguing against those who believe democracy can be customised to fit its environment. I asked a simple question: which pillars of democracy, exactly, need to be customised?
That same debate has now migrated to human rights, where the argument is increasingly that rights are a Western imposition and that “African traditions” demand something else.
Consider the woman trending right now, Salome Laurence Kikoti, for stopping a mob from killing a juvenile suspected of stealing a phone. She is a pastor at the Tanzania Assemblies of God (TAG).
During the event, she argued that everyone has the right to live and to correct their mistakes (the word she used was “to repent”). People commented positively on her courage. Some influential figures and politicians, like Eric Shigongo, an MP and businessman, have offered money to show they stand with her.
It has always been easy to applaud when we speak about a single individual whose rights are abused.
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So, I wonder: how is it that when someone stands up for a whole group of people whose rights are abused, they are branded as traitors, as “not African,” or worse, as funded by Westerners? What, then, do we say about the woman who stopped a mob from burning a thief alive? Is she funded too?
Scar of slavery
Let me take you back to history class, to what I call our “historical scars.” Among the worst things in human history is slavery, whose primary victims were Black Africans. In class, we are taught that Westerners played a significant part in abolishing it.
There are various theories about why they did so. But suppose we accept the most cynical one: that abolition served the West’s own interests. Does that mean Africans did not benefit from abolition? Of course not. Someone else benefiting from a thing does not cancel out your benefit from it. This is a non-zero-sum game.
With the slavery example, let’s now discuss those who call themselves “Pan-Africanists.” Look closely, though, and many are simply anti-white—although not in everything, but specifically in politics and especially in global politics.
Before our youth embrace this posture, we should ask: if it is Westerners who fund the projects that protect human rights, does it follow that Africa loses when those rights are observed?
It is illogical to assume that if somebody else benefits, you automatically lose. Yet that is precisely the assumption behind the claim that those protecting other people’s rights are carriers of a Western agenda.
And if that claim were true, then the leaders who signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on behalf of their countries would be the original traitors.
But wait: what about the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, adopted by the African Union itself? Its very first Article binds every member state to recognise the rights, duties, and freedoms it enshrines.
Patriots, not traitors
If Pan-Africanism means rejecting human rights and freedoms, then we may as well forget the United Nations, and the conversation would have to begin with our own national constitutions long before it ever reached the African Charter.
Seen this way, the people calling for human rights are patriots: they are insisting that their countries honour their own founding documents. Is that Western? I would accept the “foreign agenda” argument only if what these defenders demanded were nowhere written in the constitution, laws, or regulations of the country. It is written there.
Perhaps I misunderstand Pan-Africanism, at least the version invoked by those who excuse wrongdoing in its name. But Africa is a continent rich in young people, and the young generation is not the enemy of the state. Nor do they cease to be needed the moment they stand up to demand the good that is meant for them and their countries.
They may not march in protest where politics forbids it, but their dissatisfaction will surface anyway in emigration—what I call the “hidden protest.” Serious nations look for ways to keep and nurture their people. Instead, many of our young people dream of living abroad, in countries where rights are relatively respected.
Shift in youth attitudes
And yes, youth attitudes toward democracy in sub-Saharan Africa are shifting in alarming ways.
Afrobarometer surveys suggest that 68 per cent of South African youth support military rule, and that democratic commitment among young Africans is declining: where 77 per cent disapproved of military rule in 2002, only 43 per cent did by 2025.
The 2022 African Youth Survey, conducted by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, found that 53 per cent of African youth agree that Western-style democracy is not well-suited to the African context, with growing numbers open to military governance.
But what if this is something else entirely? What if the young are merely signalling support for what the economists Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman call “informational autocrats”—rulers who govern through manipulation rather than open repression?
And what if, in such a system, sycophancy is the only way to get ahead?
Francis Nyonzo is a Fulbright Alumnus, an economist and theorist whose research interests span the digital economy, development economics, social justice, and human rights. He’s available at francisnyonzo@gmail.com. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
