By Luminous Jannamike
ABUJA – A new civic platform, KnowDemWell, has been launched to profile Nigerian politicians and monitor their performance in office, with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s first 18 months in office receiving a low rating of 31.97%.
The platform categorizes politicians’ campaign promises and actual performance under seven indices, offering Nigerians a transparent means of assessing their leaders across all tiers of government.
The launch event, featured remarks from Raphael Adebayo, the platform’s founder and a Nigerian author and activist.
Adebayo described the initiative as a non-partisan tool designed to promote civic education and public accountability. He outlined the platform’s methodology, which includes scrutinizing manifestos and tracking politicians’ performance in areas such as democracy, human rights, poverty eradication, and socio-economic development.
KnowDemWell’s analysis of President Tinubu’s tenure includes disputed academic qualifications and a record of nine major corruption scandals.
The administration’s performance in 18 months was rated as low in key indices such as Commitment to Democracy, Human Rights, and Gender Equality (24%), and Commitment to Poverty Eradication (20%).
A medium performance score of 50% was noted for efforts like the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development, which was not part of his manifesto.
The platform also introduces a novel performance-rating system that categorizes politicians into low, medium, or high performers based on their adherence to campaign promises. In addition, it provides detailed profiles of political figures, tracking their social, economic, and political backgrounds.
Positioning itself as a critical accountability tool, KnowDemWell aims to normalize electoral consequences for unfulfilled promises and poor governance, with plans to expand the initiative to other levels of government and across the African continent.
Adebayo explained, “Our goal is to use the platform to normalize political and electoral consequences for politicians in the country.
“KnowDemWell is a comprehensive, non-partisan, and accurate information hub where you can access and understand the ideological views and policies of politicians and political candidates across all tiers of government in Nigeria.
“We have not manufactured any of the promises and performance indicators used to arrive at our rating. When you check Mr. Tinubu’s profile, you will see that we have rated him based on his performance or implemented policies in relation to his campaign promises.
“The socio-political-economic events Nigerians have witnessed since Mr. Tinubu came into power have been nothing short of totalitarianism behind a smoke screen of democracy.
“Totalitarian democracy is a pseudo-democratic political system where political authority is concentrated in a totalitarian central government, with absolute power often vested in one individual who enforces the monopolization of state institutions, severe censorship of media and civic space, and directly or indirectly weakens or eliminates opposition to ensure self-perpetuation.”
On the platforms future projects, Adebayo said: “We hope to replicate this platform across all levels of governance in Nigeria and scale it in due time across the continent.
“KnowDemWell scrutinizes the manifesto of politicians and categorizes their promises and performance under seven different indices, including Commitment to Democracy, Human Rights, and Gender Equality; Commitment to Poverty Eradication; and Commitment to Education and Social Change.”
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