Social (Media) Democratic Party

42

Hello, I really like your enthusiasm, but as much as we think out of the box, we must endeavor to execute inside the box,

I will start from the last paragraph of your interesting post.

You are correct, my model is like an e-APC, there is nothing sexy about it, nor anything excitingly novel about it. But you must know that there is a reason Traditional political models work, and that is because It is PRAGMATIC. Common sense is usually boring, and not exciting, and pragmatic, which is why my model will work, if we happen to come across a father Christmas Fund provider.

Secondly, I have had this same idea of yours since June 2013 as can be seen here (Chat records), which is basically to create a Political Party primarily based online to mobilize supporters and achieve effective communication and spread within the shortest time possible.

I have been in partisan politics for a while now (Former AC member, then APC), and I am equally disillusioned with the political system as much as the average Nigerian youth, much more so because I happened to be where all the actions were taking place.

The above among other reasons is why I believe this Online Party Idea will not work, because you will need humongous amounts of money to fund its development. Where do you get the funds?..I dont see you getting developers who will go all out to develop this full time, free of charge, at least Not Nigerian developers, this is why you have not seen a single developer volunteer till date to be part of this your online party thing. The same reason why a developer will not want to join this thing is the same reason why you will not get moneybags to fund its development.

But assuming you get a Money bag, there are two basic demographics you must target. 1. Nigerians who are online, and or Nigerians who listen to the Radio.

Our model primarily targets Nigerians who are online, for practical reasons of pervasiveness, they will now recruit offline Nigerians who are radio freak, via viral word of mouth modes. The multiplier effect is what you are counting on to make this thing work well at the grassroots.

Also be clear about your motives, and agendas, and I daresay it is too early in the day to ask that people DM, issues should be raised here and trashed out in the best democratic models, before you start qualifying people, except you want to create secret PACs like I did in 2013 via googleplus (diam in re publica) I also had a list of stringent qualifications etc, needless to say, very very very few people ever qualified, so you might want to be careful about your screening criteria.

I guess I am talking too much, let me stop here for now.

43

Time is relative!

I agree. But I need to at least try and see it fail to validate this knowledge for myself.:slight_smile: Yup, I know…Naivety, right?!

44

Yeah, I felt this was strange as well. I must say that I have no prior experience of how this works, but my gut feeling is that @Ogunleye_Damilare should optimise people’s enthusiasm and create a movement. Waiting for people to come to you first, so it shows their interest/commitment - defeats that purpose. Or is that not how grassroots politics work again?

Again, I’m unqualified to speak (but my opinions are free) about this - as I’m no developer. However, I disagree that developers wouldn’t give up their time, if it’s for a worthy cause. And what could be more worthy than saving your nation from ruin? Having said that, no one wants to waste their time - so it has to be well organised for people to contribute. Of course happy for a developer to point out otherwise.

45

In case You are serious about developing this thing, I happen to have the Inec Voter’s database for a State.

I also have a complete email,phone,name,location database of recent donors to Hilary Clinton’s democratic presidential race, these could be potential ‘‘donors’’ for This thing if wisdom is creatively applied.

Please do not ask me how I got these things, but a bit of snooping around on wikileaks should lead you to the Clinton Donor database.

5 Likes
46

@PapaOlabode The above is why.

I thought this post in itself was already creating some kind of movement. Or how else would you advise?

47

This sounds good and sensible. I mean knowing people you want to be associated with, makes perfect sense. However, like I said earlier, it seems you’re optimising for the right thing at the wrong time.

I quite like @Tunde_IO’s advice actually. [Ehh, the Law sir! - I like how you think constitution quickly.] So what you want right now @Ogunleye_Damilare is a huge funnel (remove the artificial ‘knock on my door’ mindset) of people interested in this ‘idea’. Then you can think of some sort of inner caucus or govern body to provide directions.

And to be clear @Ogunleye_Damilare, this is already a movement. To an extent. I’m sure a lot of people are rightly sceptical and think it wouldn’t amount to anything. On the other hand, even a ‘sceptic’ like @alpontif is happy to help.

And you want all that help and support. To give this seed of an idea, the chance to flourish.

48

I thought @Tunde_IO’s structure was brilliant. Already working on that.

I guess it’s a chicken and egg scenario at the back of my head? Do you create the system to absorb a critical mass or accrue the mass and build systems from there. I tend to think that when people join movements without finding purpose or already set up structure, they tune off and tune out.

I was already considering working on the google doc in parallel to the “knock on my door” approach (I didn’t think it came off as a put-off, because people have actually knocked on it). But I guess the knocking-on-my-door effort is the equivalent of filling-a-Google-doc.

@StephenAfamO Wanna help with the Google doc? We can jointly determine the necessary columns of info we need from interested “believers” and “skeptics”?

@alpontif Oh. Most certainly taking you up on your offer. And I have considered all your skepticism as good pointers

49

Of course.

50

I see where you’re coming but maybe a way to think about this is - this forum is not mass (compared to the size of a political party) and this is where you can actually build systems (diverse skills/expertise all in one small spot).

In all, I think you definitely sense that while the idea resonates with a lot of people (at least judging by people coming through your inbox - as you say), this still requires good execution to stand any chance. Anyways, we dey your back!

51

It is always easier said than done. Am creating a mock scenario here-in ;

Its December 2018, Social(media) democratic Party successfully has 5 million members, probably between the ages of 20-32.
Sdp is at this time led by a leadership structure of 5 people.The leadership structure is approached by a leading political party to declare its support for their candidate.If the SDP leadership can support this political party, the leadership structure will be rewarded with N1bn.
Prior to this event, two members of the SDP @mauri and @yinka have had it difficult finding an investor for their young,promising startup and at this stage,its only a matter of weeks : before both startups fold-up if no funding is gotten.
There is @akindolu who has just launched a Video conferencing app. Which has been appraised by major industry players, however has had problems convincing consumers to ditch foriegn competitors and adopt it.
Apart from getting a share of the N1bn windfall ,he’s also been offered a deal,which will see foriegn competitors to his app. Like Skype,hangout kicked out of the country.
Let each and every radarian ,replace him/herself with @yinka or @mauri @akindolu in my scenario.
In all sincerity, do you think you will go against the principles of the party ,and endorse a wrong candidate or you will let your startup foldup and also forego good money?

I think the SDP idea is a good one, however the potential obstacle will probably make it fail.We should all remember that for everyone, who joins the SDP entourage, they each have life interests , family members, loved ones and personal goals.
Coupled with the fact, it’s a non-profit initiative, the tendency for members getting swayed becomes huge.
Reading through the comments on this thread , most radarians seem to assume everyone on Radar as an example, has got same guts feeling, supports the same political party etc

5 Likes
52

This is damn cool. The only way I think this would work is if it is goal-oriented and result focused. People can only join or stay wen the goals are being achieved. Nigerians would support this but are the people spearheading it ready to sacrifice themselves for this? These are questions we should answer. Short term goals being projected and actualized would ginger the people to become even more active in the platform. To achieve this we would be needing true patriots and not just smart startup founders. I am 100% into this.

1 Like
53

There’s this weird assumption that because we want to change Nigeria we’re a homogenous group with the same ideologies, which is far from the truth. For all the talk of “transparency” and “data”, there has been no mention of this party’s political stance and where it leans. In that regard, it’s no different from what already exists. Perhaps, just a new set of players and thats all. For any political party to be successful, all its members have a shared top level political ideology at the very least.

2 Likes
54

Which is part of why I said it will not work. Nigerians are very susceptible to the bandwagon effect, and it is the role of people with access to better information to seek to arrange things in such a way that Nigerians will not be the Losers at the end of the day.

This means, that I for example hvae a defined stance on socioeconomic issues as it relates to the develoment of the Country, this translates into an ideological stance that will not change, seeing folks with that same stance means been able to work together with them to actualize the Ideology in the Political system.

Therefore, stating the ideological position of this thing will be the right thing to do if the promoters want it to work, that way potential supporters will know what exactly they are joining.

For instance, I am a believer in meritocracy, meaning I am a capitalist with socialist tendencies. This by extension means that I believe Government should have just the sole task of Managing and Taxing a society in order to maintain a monopoly of Violence, every other thing should be left in the hands of the private sector,apart from some exemptions. Left to Me, ALL Government Public Infrastructure projects development will be via PPP, Education, Health and security will be the sole responsibility of the Government, and the government has to make health and education free, following the Scandinavian models. There should not be anything like zoning, or federal character principle etc.

That is my ideology, If i see that in any political party of Like minds, I am joining.

So I agree, I think the OP should define the Ideology of this ‘‘party’’, That will be the first step in the right direction.

55

Let us call this The New Democratic party. SDP is already taken.
The BVN should serve enough purpose in KYC verification.
When signing up, I will suggest that State of Origin should not be included in the bio-data form.
Should be funded based on online donations with the party including a full disclosure clause of who donated what if the need arises.
-Ready to work on this for lunch. Don’t ask me if I can code

4 Likes
56

YSo, before someone comes here to drop a really smart “oh by the way, what happened to this”, let’s just give a few updates.

As with all things you don’t have a model for, you sometimes have to stagger towards what works, so here are a few updates.

1.) We created a slack channel to discuss the idea or at least what the idea looks like. The conversation went in different directions, and life even happened as the conversation went very cold at some point. The slack channel wasn’t intended to be elitist at all. But there are many ways to skin a cat. In the end, even though we had a seeming consensus of the problem, our interpretation of the solution went in various directions.

2.) Life happened to most of us and at some point, we almost jettisoned the idea. Yup, an idea that hasn’t almost been jettisoned is at best not challenging enough

3.) We have had an offline to discuss framework(s) that can help. However we definitely can’t claim to have the silver bullet, so we’ll continue to stagger

4.) We are currently looking for the following skills to volunteer:

Financial Modelling, HTML5 Game design, Graphic design (UI/UX), Constituional law (lawyer), Research, Testing, Content Curation, and Writers.

These skills are the immediate needs we have, however we reckon we would soon need: Photography, Film-Making, Event Organizing, Mobilizing, Fund-raising and Marketing Communications (Advertising and Digital Marketing).

So, please if you would be interested in volunteering, kindly drop a line indicating the skills you’ld most preferably be helping out with. The idea leads requiring each of these skills would reach out to you.

And as @PapaOlabode suggested about creating a large enough pool, we totally agree, and that is what we are currently working towards.

Looking forward to some kickass stuff!

I should also drop this here:

57

This your statement is really tempting me to say I told you so…But I wont say that.

‘‘Ina ale ni omo eye n pada bo wa ya’’

The other time, when I in my church mind created a thread to help you people recruit Software devs for this thing, You folks nearly crucified me because you thought I was trying to steal your thunder…

The skill set you are even requesting for now, is what you will need if you are trying to implement the model I suggested, or a slight variant of it…

And your slack channel experience will also tell you why Clearer heads suggested that everything should be carried out and thrashed out openly on Radar, Your slack channel thing was the equivalent of Putting an NDA on a startup idea you are just presenting to possible investors…You are taking yourself too seriously.

That said, now that everything is in the open again (for now), there is hope that this party thing might just work.

NB: I am usually not politically correct with the truth. Kindly Ignore the barbs and focus on the substance.

58

*Smiles. And I am the one taking myself too seriously. Ok ohhh.

P.S. I am also not politically responsive to barbs, but I appreciate substance when I see one.

1 Like
59

Kudos on preempting the smart comments. :joy:

60

I give up.::grinning:

61

Love the idea!.. I’m in… hopefully this pulls through on every angle