The civic organization KnowDemWell has characterized Bola Tinubu’s political ideology as a “totalitarian democracy.”
The platform, launched on Monday, profiles Nigerian politicians at all levels of government, evaluating their social, economic, and political backgrounds.
According to KnowDemWell, totalitarian democracy is defined as “a pseudo-democratic system where political authority is centralized in a totalitarian government. Power is often concentrated in one individual who monopolizes state institutions, enforces severe censorship of the media and civic spaces, and weakens or eliminates opposition to maintain control.”
Raphael Adebayo, the platform’s founder and a Nigerian author and activist, supported this view, stating, “The socio-political and economic events Nigerians have experienced since Mr. Tinubu imposed himself on the nation have been nothing short of totalitarianism masked as democracy.”
On the platform, Tinubu’s profile is rated at 31.97%, classified as Low Performance. Adebayo clarified, “We have not fabricated any promises or performance indicators used in this assessment. Tinubu’s profile reflects his actions and policies measured against his campaign promises.”
The civic platform also profiled President Tinubu’s academic background, which is marked “disputed” across Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary education levels. Accordingly, the platform records the President’s occupation as a “Full-Time Politician and Political Godfather.”
On Tinubu’s profile, there are nine major corruption scandals recorded, with two convictions related to drug trafficking in the United States and zero convictions for other corruption scandals in Nigeria.
Adebayo explained that the KnowDemWell platform scrutinises the manifesto of politicians and categorises their promises and performance under seven different indices, which include Commitment to Democracy, Human Rights, and Gender Equality; Commitment to Poverty Eradication; Commitment to Ending Corruption in Public Offices and Society; Commitment to Socio-Economic Development and Environmental Protection; Commitment to Education and Social Change; Commitment and Approach to Internal Security and Public Safety; and Commitment and Approach to Peace and Conflict Resolution.
Tinubu’s profile shows a 24% low-performance score both in the platform’s Commitment to Democracy, Human Rights, and Gender Equality index, as well as the Commitment to Education and Social Change index.
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In terms of Commitment to Poverty Eradication, Commitment to Ending Corruption in Public Offices and Society, Commitment to Socio-Economic Development and Environmental Protection, as well as Commitment and Approach to Internal Security and Public Safety, Tinubu scores a low performance of 20% each across the board.
However, the platform scores Tinubu a 50% medium performance under the Commitment and Approach to Peace and Conflict Resolution index, for the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development, which was not promised in Tinubu’s manifesto.
According to Adebayo, the KnowDemWell platform is “a critical civic education and public accountability tool that we hope to replicate across all levels of governance in Nigeria and scale in due time across the continent.” He added that one of their goals is to “use the platform to normalize political and electoral consequences for politicians in the country.”
The KnowDemWell platform is described as 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.”
KnowDemWell also documents, monitors, and compares the campaign promises of politicians to their actual performance in public office.
The platform also assigns a verdict of low, medium, or high-performance rating to every politician profiled.
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