Oyo Pledges to Deploy ICT for Infrastructure Development

Nosa Alekhuogie
The Oyo State Government has restated its commitment to building a digital economy through massive deployment of ICT infrastructure and digital skills training for civil servants in the state.

Special Assistant to the State Governor on ICT and E-governance, Mr. Adebayo Akande, who restated government’s commitment, said the state government had in the past two years of Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration digitised many government services.

Highlighting some of the critical projects that have set the state on the right path to digitisation, Akande said the administration kick-started with the mass training of civil servants in digital skills and use of the digital collaborative and productivity tools.

“In the last two years, we have also rolled out data warehousing and data infrastructure in Oyo state where all Government data and documentation will be domiciled and accessed in real-time,” Akande said.
He added that the state had also commenced the digitisation of land procurement, survey, and certificate of ownership processes.

According to him, other digital projects executed by the administration in the last two years included fibre optic cable rollout across the entire secretariat for high-speed internet and intranet connectivity in the secretariat; large scale procurement of 1,939 computer, printers, and UPS for civil servants; and digitisation of recruitment process with the Oyo State job portal which has put a stop to nepotism and brought about an improved user experience. The portal is said to have processed over 300,000 applications so far.

He added that the state government had also commenced the process of digitising all paper files for complete business process automation while implementing an Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) and E-procurement platform for efficient contracting transparency and online procurement. The Special Assistant further disclosed that the state had also carried out biometric registration and verification of all government workers, pensioners, and ad-hoc staff.

The state had also organised Oracle Academy training on java fundamentals and database management to all its Computer Science teachers who will, in turn, train their students, as programming language is introduced to secondary schools’ curriculum in the state.

Corroborating this, the Country Programmes Manager, Oracle Academy sub-Sahara Africa, Sefunmi Fadahunsi, said the Oyo State Government partook of the partnership agreement Oracle signed with the Federal Ministry of Education to advance Computer Science Education in Nigeria. “We are glad at the quick adoption from Oyo State. Teacher training has been delivered to pilot teachers who will multiply and transfer this knowledge to Students and also adopt the knowledge and curriculum in their teaching. This is an exemplary progress,” Fadahunsi said.

Commenting on the landmark achievements of the state in the area of ICT development, the Chief Executive Officer of Presto Integrated Solutions, Mr. Chris Okafor, said: “The future-oriented and visionary government of Governor Seyi Makinde, deemed it fit to setup a fibre optic network all over the state secretariat to enhance staff productivity and efficiency.”