How the DPA double-layered membership system works beautifully

DPA deliberately runs a two-step membership program. In the era of social media, it is easy for people to pose to be who they are not. This has been very devastating in a country like Nigeria with poor personal identification system. It is difficult to know a person based on his or her social media profile.

We therefore, almost by default, created a two level identification system. First, we allow a person to join any of the DPA social media forums – Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. It is relatively easy to join. All you need is to have a social media account that is at least 6 months old, with some evidence of genuine activities or you need to be invited. Once you join our forum, you are expected to learn more about our programs and our discussions and to meet, interact with other forum members.

Eventually, a forum member has to determine how to move to the next level. If you want to expand your engagement with our organization, you will need to become a registered member. Given, that you have been a member of our forum, you are pre-qualified to become a registered member.

This two-layered membership system has helped us. But no system is fail proof. So, we do make mistakes. Once in a while, we let into the forum very toxic people with the capacity to pollute anything they touch. We had such experience yesterday. One lady recently invited by a member to join the forum went wild today. Out of the blues, she claimed she was an original member of this forum, but she left when she found that the Founder was a fraudulent man. She claimed that this forum has 2 million members but only 100 people comment on posts. She claimed that the Founder is not awaiting trial, but has been convicted of murder. Of course, other forum members who read her outrageous claims were surprised how such a person was allowed in here. But that is our system. We screen backwards. That is, we give you chance to show that you can’t belong here before we take you out. At the same time, we are not really threatened by such behavior because the person is not a registered member. That’s the beauty of the double layer system of membership.