The forms of democracy that are in place in most of our African countries is legally very one-sided. In other words, the president and his immediate circle usua

The forms of democracy that are in place in most of our African countries is legally very one-sided. In other words, the president and his immediate circle usually have near unilateral sway of the allocation (or creation in the case of something like currency) of state resources. Thus, if the leader is corrupt (and few aren't, given that much control) then the corruption becomes much more apparent and influential at all levels of government. Compare this to, say, most Western countries which have a tradition of strong checks and balances in place to prevent this level of unilateral control, right down to the citizenry (consider any recent HN article on the term extension of Xi Jinping and the related comments).