Social as well as political scientists have variously defined politics. If we call to mind Laswell's (1950) contention that politics is the struggle for power, acquisition of power, retention of power and the exercise of power, or even Easton's (1965) view that politics is the authoritative allocation of scarce resources, then it becomes easy to see why governance must be burdened with expectations, demands and counter/opposing demands. Our concern in this paper is to bring our erstwhile nascent and, now not so new, African democracies into perspective as we examine these against the backdrop of fundamental human rights. There is an obvious limitation to this objective since it would appear merely to be looking at one half of a problem, whose source is in the second, unmentioned half. In other words, for any discussion of politics and human rights in any African nation once under colonial rule to make sense, the nature of that colonial administration and its legacies must form an integral part of such a study.