By Eric Elezuo
The level the much touted corruption is taking root in Africa’s largest democracy, Nigeria, is becoming alarming, and from many quarters, a lot of unworkable solutions are being proffered.
Recall that recently, a former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, while reviewing a book titled: “Curbing Electoral Spending” launched by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, advised African countries to restrategise their approaches in fighting corruption.
Jega is a two term Chairman if the Nigerian electoral body, and is reputed to have supervised two elections that produced two presidents, including the one that removed a sitting president; the first of its kind in Nigeria.
In his advise, Jega remarked that in Nigeria, corruption is in the increase compared to other African countries, and suggested that “we need to take the fight seriously.”
“It is a day for sober reflection for us and for reviewing our experiences and restrategise to find better ways and means of improving the successes in the fight against corruption,” he said.
But proffering an enduring solution, a Techpreneur, Mr. Joel Popoola, pointed out that as endemic as the corruption scourge has become, it is imperative that a more stronger, more reliable, more technologically based and stress free approach be introduced to tackle headlong the hydra headed monster, which has eaten deep into the social and moral fibres of the Nigerian society. He disclosed that the use of the new Democracy App, Rate Your Leader, which has been tested and found credible will put a permanent end to the issue of corruption in Nigeria.
Popoola, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Rate Your Leader, an app that allows voters hold their elected representatives accountable for their actions, informed that with the app, every eligible voter is directly connected to public office holders, and day to day interaction is enabled.
“With this kind of relationship, which is bonded by the app, there is little or no intention by elected officers to conduct themselves inappropriately because the electors are monitoring.
“What we need is to fight corruption technologically, and from the very root, that is before it begins to be conceived and that is where Rate Your Leader, which is insult and abusive free, comes in,” he said.
The Democracy app, which is already making waves in the United Kingdom as councilors, mayors and other leaders are signed in, will be launched in Nigeria early in 2020, thereby bringing a revolution in the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
Popoola commended the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari, the nation’s anti-graft agencies, the EFCC and the ICPC in the fight against corruption so far, and remarked that their jobs could be made a lot more easier with the use of the Democracy App.
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