The African continent, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, has demonstrated its readiness to embrace democracy and its principles. The momentum with which many African states abandoned military rule and other forms of authoritarian regime for democracy is such that will never pass unnoticed. Besides the examples of Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, etc, other instances include the democratic revolutions witnessed recently in North Africa to wit, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. This assuming unprecedented wind of change in Africa since its independence notwithstanding, the story of democracy in Africa has not been a successful one. An attempt to reflect on the progress so far presents a number of problems associated with the practice of democracy in Africa. Some of them are corruption, unaccountability, inefficiency, erosion of traditional values, dictatorship, etc. Apparently, democracy in Africa is different from democracy in North America (especially, the United States of America) and Western Europe; and so do the problems they pose differ. The question is: why are there peculiar problems of democracy in Africa? This paper refuses to accept the nascent nature of democracy in Africa as the cause of these problems. Rather, employing the methods of analysis and evaluation, it argues that the Western conception of democracy is alien to Africa. It, therefore, suggests a modification of the concept of democracy in Africa such that it would accommodate African peculiarities and experiences as well as the rich socio-political and traditional realities in Africa.
