Philosophia Africana, vol. 14, no. 1, september 2012 41 1. Introduction In West Africa, scrutiny of governance in all its aspects has been the focus of intense debate among academics, revolutionaries, and opinion leaders since the mid-nineteenth century (Baku, 1990). This is not a new historical development in Africa; monitoring, critiquing, and petitioning a government’s treatment of its cit- izenry, its policies, efficiency, integrity, structural arrangements, and institutional practices might be regarded as a natural progression from the time-honored cer- emonial pillorying of individual royals in authority (Yankah, 1998). Social critique has been a ritual mainstay of indigenous West African courts since antiquity (Assi- meng, 1992). This essay will explore the widely read controversy between Kwasi Wiredu and perhaps his most influential critic, the late Chukwudi Emmanuel Eze, about indigenous Akan rule by consensus and its potential to strengthen delivery of Afri- ca’s contemporary democratic promises. 1 Ostensibly, these two well-known West African philosophers occupy opposite poles in their respective evaluations of the traditional centerpiece of African governance—i.e., the council of elders advising a selected royal family head in life-long service. Eze’s main points of criticism are as follows: (1) Wiredu indulges in misleading romanticism and an excessive ratio- nalism in his normative accounts of pre-colonial Akan society; and (2) Wiredu’s arguments in favor of the pre-colonial Akan non-party style of politics can func- tion just as well to defend the single-party platforms of the early nationalists whose monopoly on political power required rigid suppression of democratic freedoms. This article will treat these two objections in separate sections. A third section will discuss the inherent mistake of conflating normative analyses with circumstantial and historically factual accounts of African political practice. Wiredu and Eze on Good Governance Helen Lauer Associate Professor, Philosophy and Classics Department University of Ghana, Legon