The maker of a new Nigerian App, Rate Your Leader, an abuse-proof digital platform which connects voters and politicians, Joel Popoola, has urged electors to embrace new technology to ‘take back democracy’ or risk the downside.
Mr Popoola in a statement expressed his worry that 84% of Nigerians own smart phones but less than half of them voted in the 2015 election.
“The irony is that the technology now exists to allow both people and the politicians elected to serve them to connect at the touch of a button. But that technology all too often falls into modern mob rule.
“Whether it’s Brexit in Britain, Trump in America or Jeune Gillets in France, voters no longer believe that politicians represent them– it’s time to take back democracy with technology,” Popoola said.
The Nigerian-born British tech entrepreneur, quoted a research from YouGov, an international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, headquartered in the UK, which declared that only 18% of voters trust politicians to ‘do what is right’, with 66% believing their elected officials put personal interest before communal interest.
This decline in faith in traditional politics, Popoola said, has coincided with the election of explicitly anti-establishment leaders in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and India, the result of the Brexit referendum in the UK and in the case of the Jeune Gillets Paris direct action on the streets.
Popoola added that the Rate Your Leader app has recently been launched to connect politicians with verified local electors using abuse-proof technology.
The app, which also allows people to check to see if they are registered to vote and identify their elected representatives at the touch of a button, is free to download from the App store and other App marketplaces.
