BRITAIN made a number of bequests to its former colonies. They all got expensive high commission buildings in Belgravia, which the more improvident ones sold off. They were all left with grossly unfair terms of trade, which they struggle with to this day. But the jewel in the crown, so far as the British are concerned, is parliamentary democracy.

It never fails to amaze me to find, in some far-flung corner of the world, a legislative chamber which is an exact copy of the British House of Commons, right down to the Speaker’s chair. Unfortunately, parliamentary democracy has taken a battering all over the world, with the imposition of military dictatorships and one-party states.

Even in Britain itself, former Prime Minister Tony Blair modelled himself on a US president and did not seem to take Parliament very seriously.

So, I was very interested to attend in Abuja, Nigeria, a conference entitled ‘First African Legislative Summit 2013’. The purpose of the conference was to look at how to strengthen emerging democracies and the role that parliaments can play.

Africa has a particular problem with parliamentary democracy, because so many African countries have recently emerged from military rule. But some of the problems that Africa has with parliamentary democracy are also shared with more sophisticated democracies like Britain. It is common in Africa for the ruling party to assume that Parliament should simply reflect its will. But British prime ministers also tend to think this.

Of course, the biggest problem undermining democracy everywhere is corruption. The West loves to wring its hands about corruption in Africa and elsewhere. But gross financial corruption is not unknown in European countries like Belgium and Italy. And the West must bear some burden of responsibility for the level of corruption in Africa.

For years, during the Cold War, the West was willing to support the most grotesquely corrupt dictators so long as they were — in turn — prepared to support the Americans. Leaders, who might have been a little more principled, like Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, were often assassinated with Western connivance.

Having worked so hard to buy African leaders, Western governments and multi-nationals cannot complain about current levels of corruption. But they do. And they have a point.

Financial corruption is not just the enemy of good government; it is also the enemy of a stable economy.

Corruption often means that contracts are given out, not to the companies that can effectively deliver, but to those that pay the biggest bribes. Nigeria has made big strides in recent years, with a new generation of leaders coming to the fore. But, whilst it is one of the biggest oil producers in the world, it still has endemic problems with power generation. It is often argued that this is due to corruption. In the same way, the instability in the oil-producing region of Nigeria and the north of the country is often put down to popular disgust at corruption.

The West has belatedly tried using aid and trade as levers against corruption. It insists that countries will only get help if they meet certain standards of good governance. But this has been forcing many African countries into the arms of the Chinese, who are happy to give aid and engage in trade with nary a word about good governance.

African multi-millionaire Mo Ibrahim set up a £3.4-million prize to be awarded personally to African leaders who were not corrupt, raised living standards and left office of their own accord. But he has only been able to award the prize four years out of five. Apparently, not even the £3 million was enough to tempt most African leaders, who mostly seemed to go on busily looting their treasuries as before.

It seems the best lever for good governance is an informed populace and more transparency. The rise of mobile phones, the Internet, social media and connectivity generally may make these goals easier to achieve.

There are signs of hope. The recent internal elections in the Jamaica Labour Party show that political differences can be settled in a democratic framework. New leaders and more women leaders may be able to leave behind some of the chronically poor governance of the past. And the well-organised and well-supported conference that I attended in Abuja shows that across Africa there are politicians willing to improve governance and strengthen parliamentary democracy.

— Diane Abbott is the British Labour party MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington

www.dianeabbott.org.uk