Democracy is today one of the most popular concepts not only in academic circles, but also in governmental as well as non‐governmental domains. The New World (Dis)Order has made its liberal version to acquire a fairly standardized and universal connotation to the neglect of contextual variables that may impact on it for good or ill. This paper questions the universalistic conception of liberal democracy as one, whose character is fairly standardized, arguing that such a conception represents a major disservice to democratization in Africa. Consequently, liberal democracy has not only become subjective, but also theoretically ambivalent and analytically vacuous. Its dispositions as a ʺcelebrityʺ in its own right, tend to propel undemocratic forces to pretend as democrats to avoid coveting international resentment. For this reason, the concept of liberal democracy can be indicted of complicity in the level of autocrats in civilian garbs across the globe particularly in Africa. In its present form and character, the concept of democracy does very little or nothing to illuminate our understanding of contemporary politics particularly in the African context. Its main attraction seems the advancement of Western interest especially the USA in the consolidation of its Cold War victory, and that of opportunistic African leaders in their quest for power and accumulation of private capital. Critical questions pertaining to its contexts of origin and metamorphosis must, therefore, be interrogated if the concept would ever be useful both theoretically and analytically.
