Firstly, I don’t want to appear more vocal than the rest of the Africa DAO community members, however, being a validator on harmony for 10 months and counting, a former governor of Validator DAO, a founding governor of Nigeria DAO and a consistent active member of Harmony community since December 2020, It will be morally wrong on my part to see a community I have joined in it’s years of grinding, when many didn’t know much about Harmony or it’s DAO operations go through dangerous precedence and keep mute.
My love for this community is based on personal convictions, not financial, hearsay or coercion.
For context, In October 2021, I had a session with JCR validator on the idea of establishing an Africa DAO. I immediately set to work with a group of Nigerians, A Ugandan and an Egyptian acquaintance of mine. The mandate was to bring Harmony to Africa, birth DAOs across Africa and serve as a front towards building web3 in Africa and championing African builders to build on Harmony.
We were working on this dream when suddenly in November 2021, an Africa DAO proposal was published by @ep2338 on talk.harmony.one. Many reached out to me including JCR thinking I did this. I told them I was not aware. It was a painful realization as we didn’t know any of the foundation governors nor have they being active within Harmony. We also reached a conclusion to work with @ep2338 and his other governors. At this point, I commented on the proposal, shared it on twitter and ask all Africans to join the telegram. The telegram was at 17 members. I reached out to @giv and expressed our profound happiness on the proposal and ability to work with the governors to bring Harmony to Africa. Within 24 hours I came in as telegram admin, I grew the community by 300% from 17 members to nearly 75 members. Some of these early members have since resigned to fate, voiced their displeasure privately on how the community is being run and many no longer are active.
From the way things were run the first weeks after funding, I and my community decided to establish Nigeria DAO as I had expressed my fears to them that these governors have no plan of facilitating the creation of regional DAOs in Africa or in Nigeria. We set out to work and after almost 2 months of work which I self funded, paid for feasibility studies, logistics etc we finally got approved and funded. I have expended no less than $1000 of my personal funds to facilitate the efficient running of Naija DAO for the last two months before we were approved and funded. A fund I don’t ask to be given back to me.
Why is this background important?
This is to let readers and other community members understand that my commitment to Africa DAO and Harmony in general has been a matter of personal conviction, sacrifice, self denial and even humility if I will add. At least now many will understand why I and many felt betrayed by current Africa DAO governors who unilaterally changed the name of Africa DAO and expanded it’s mandates to include South America. All with no voting by the community, nor informing the community.
You can find my first response to this here Change of Name and Mandate for Africa DAO- Dangerous precedence for the future It took the governors 1 week to listen to community voices and revert things to how it was.
On the 26th of February 2022, the Main governor Eduard for the first time gave a concise and detailed report and a way forward for the community. You can find this here; Africa DAO - #72 by ep2338
While I commend the governors for their response, it is important we take these concenrs into consideration. These concerns are based on the response given by Eduard.
- We agree with your suggestion that a community vote should resolve this misunderstanding. We propose that a vote (everyone with a non-zero $ONE balance gets to vote) take place next week after we have held a community discussion on the topic. We welcome name suggestions from the community from today until March 1 (end of day). Potential names that have already been put forth include:
1. Africa DAO (original name)
2. Impact +
3. Impact + for Africa
4. (Your proposal here. The above list is just an initial list of suggestions. Community input is critical.)
While I commend this initiative, I do think this is hurriedly done with no time given to a community to even think about this response, give a feedback or think out a name. Giving the community 3 days ultimatum to come up with a name which they never asked for or were carried along to come to this premise seems to me another ploy to adopt the name Impact DAO after the governors and their friends vote on this on snapshot thereby accusing any community member who complains of lack of participation, witch-hunt or false accusations and attacks like I have been accused the past week.
I suggest the DAO governors continue working on their mandates. If the mandates are the same, why the name change? Is Africa not a good name? Does Africa as an Identity of our DAO an anathema to social Impact? Why this desire undue desire to change the name of Africa DAO to Impact? I personally, don’t understand this but if the community votes on acceptance, then so be it.
- Good governance is a central pillar of any DAO. During the last few months, we have developed internal guidelines and tools (travel, financial, and marketing/events policies). Guidelines ensure we work in a coordinated, systematic, professional manner. While some of these guidelines have already been posted on the Harmony forum (see above), others will be posted as soon as they are completed. We will continue to keep the community informed of all job postings, details of the activities, etc. via our Telegram, Harmony page and Twitter account.
While I appreciate the guidelines internally developed. It is necessary to clarify that these guidelines are not known to the community. Also, the guidelines meant here seems to be guidelines for meetups, activities and not on governance of the DAO.
Also, why do the governors continue giving updates under the initial proposal for funding instead on a different topic on talk. Is this deliberate for community members to miss out on information or actions done with good intent? This I don’t know.
I have taken it upon myself together with some Africa DAO members to work on a governance charter for Africa DAO. You can read it here Proposal for the preview, amendment or ratification of a Proposed Charter for Africa DAO and leave your comments for amendments or ratification.
- We thus have two upcoming votes for two open governor positions. We encourage members of the community to apply, particularly if you have experience in governance or community engagement. We would be particularly pleased if the selected new governors are African (and potentially women, so that we may achieve gender parity, as we currently have two women as governors). Cultural diversity will enrich us as a group.
The election period will start on March 1 and the vote will take place until March 7 (end of day).
If after 3 months of the DAO existence, there is no charter for elections and governance, then on what charter is this election being held? and why hurriedly?
Here are my reasons why this election should be postponed until a charter is ratified:
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Lack of awareness by members. The governors have not trained or educated members on the new snapshot, how to vote and what is required. Many members still need to be onboarded on the Harmony protocol community, this has not been done. It is either we run Afrca DAO as a DAO needs to be run or clearly state this is a corporate centralized organization.
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No charter or constitution. Which rules are we following. Who is making the rules. When was it ratified.
If this election goes ahead to hold, then many members will be disenfranchised, and again, anyone who complains further will be labeled unprintable names. This why I have worked a charter since the governors didn’t deem it it fit to do so. Again, like the governors confessed themselves that they are all new to DAO operations, I do hope they accept my free service with the gratitude it deserves.
I wish to thank all the current Africa DAO governors for their hard work and for submitting themselves to be accountable to the African DAO community. I look forward in anticipation to this part of their response " We will publish all of our expenses next month. All expenses have been professionally documented and accounted for, as we are fortunate to count among the governors a senior finance manager with 15+ years of experience."
Thanks
