Enhancing Governance with Technology
The need to make governance at all levels to become more productive and accessible to the citizens, while leveraging on emerging digital technologies, was the crux of this year’s e-Government Summit, writes Emma Okonji
Giving the low state of e-Government deployment in Nigeria, coupled with the low rating of the country’s e-Government index survey by the United Nations in 2022, where Nigeria was ranked 140 out of the 193 countries of the world that were surveyed, technology experts have stressed the need for Nigerian government to step up her e-Government deployment strategies.
The experts spoke at this year’s annual Nigeria eGovernment Summit, organised by DigiServe Networks Limited in Lagos last week, and called on government at all levels to leverage emerging digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Blockchain, Big Data Analytics among others to make governance more productive and accessible to the citizens, especially in today’s digital era, where data is key.
Speaking about the theme of the summit: ‘eGovernment-Pathway to a Prosperous Nation’, the Executive Chairman, DigiServe Network Services, and convener of Nigeria eGovernment Summit, Lanre Ajayi, challenged the 52 speakers lined up for the summit, which is in its fifth year, to come up with solutions that government could leverage upon to provide digital services that are productive and accessible to citizens.
According to him, the theme is in tandem with the current mood of the nation where Nigerians have high hopes that the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will leverage technology to enhance government service offerings to its citizens in order to better their lots in a prosperous nation that they hoped for.
“We carefully chose the theme for this year’s summit and we assembled 52 speakers to discuss the theme that will further help government to leverage technology in providing services to the citizens. The summit is not just a talk show, as we expect certain outcomes from the discussions that will shape government service delivery. Some of the objectives of the 2023 e-Government Summit are to set agenda for the new Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, and to challenge participants to come up with strategies that will help in the successful implementation of eGovernment in Nigeria,” Ajayi said.
Productivity
Speaking on how to make governance productive, the Executive Commissioner, Corporate Services, Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr. Ibrahim Boyi, said e-governance must come with certain values such as efficiency, convenience, transparency, data security enhancement, promoting inclusiveness and wider industry participation. According to him, the values help in making faster decision, engage meaningfully with stakeholders, boost citizens’ confidence and also boost economic growth. He said SEC understood the significance of digital infrastructure and the role it plays in promoting e-governance, but added that Nigeria had long been faced some challenges in driving the eGovernment processes, such as poor quality of infrastructure, digital divide, digital exclusion, resistance to change, security apprehensions, budget constraints, among others. He said surmounting the challenges would involve full delivery of eGovernment services to all Nigerians. “Surmounting the challenges will amount to collaboration between the public sector and the private sector, including the civil society, to enhance infrastructure and elevate digital literacy in Nigeria. Nigeria needs the right advocacy for the right policies and the right enlightenment campaigns to educate the public about the benefits of e-governance. SEC has some initiatives and strategies put in place like the e-Dividend mandate to support the growth of e-governance,” Boyi said.
Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecomms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said the progress made by the telecoms industry over the years, has been very significant, given the current contribution of the telecoms sector to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Nigerian economy. He however said Nigeria has lost several of its tech experts to foreign economies as Nigerians continue to leave the country in large numbers to foreign countries to attain better loving condition. Adebayo also decried the depletion of smaller telecoms operators as a result of the harsh and unhealthy competition introduced by the bigger telecoms operators, and called on the telecoms regulator to address the situation to avoid further extinction of smaller telecoms operators.
He therefore stressed the need for government to leverage technology in providing services for the citizens that will make them remain in Nigeria and become more productive.
Other participants who spoke at the summit, called on government to design strategies for implementing eGovernment processes, and to build a mutual beneficial relationship between government and technology service providers that would impact on citizens and the Nigerian economy. They urged government to encourage collaboration between it and technology service providers that will foster adoption of the right technologies for governance. They also called on government to develop capacity building among citizens and boost local content development through the use of emerging digital technologies.
Accessibility
Addressing the issue of technology accessibility, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by the Lagos State Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Mr. Tunbosun Alake, said the state government understood the importance of making technology accessible to the people and has leveraged emerging digital technologies in providing digital services to the people of Lagos State.
According to him, “Today, technology is evolving and we have technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Big Data, Data Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Robotics, among others. These evolving technologies have the potential to change the way we live and work, and the technologies remain important facet of transformation in government. There are critical enabling factors such that if absent, they can pose great challenges that can reduce the effectiveness of deploying technology in governance. The critical factors include talent/intellectual capacity, proper coordination and unified action plan among government agencies. Some of the challenges, most times, affect technology projects. These challenges are not peculiar to Nigeria, as developed countries also face such challenges.”
The governor therefore challenged technology experts at this year’s Nigeria eGovernment Summit, to come up with solutions that government could use to address specific challenges in governance. “The Lagos State government will be glad to get unique solutions from the eGovernment Summit that it can tap into to address some of the critical challenges in governance,” the governor further said.
Infrastructure in Governance
In his keynote address, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, who was represented by the Ag Director, eGovernment Development and Regulations at NITDA, Mr. Bernard Ewah, said the provisions of eGovernment services largely relied on non-state actors like the industry stakeholders that attended the fifth Nigeria eGovernment Summit.
According to him, most of the infrastructure needed to provide eGovernment services are no longer in the hands of government alone, which clearly shows that all industry stakeholders and the government should play active role in providing digital services to the citizens, through the deployment of digital technologies. “Today, a lot of data is being generated by government, corporate organisations and individuals, and our role as a government agency, is to see how we can bring all of these together and create the synergy so that everyone has its role to play in providing digital services to the citizens,” Abdullahi said.
In another keynote address, Ag Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zaccheus Adedeji, who was represented by Dr. Richard Aboki from FIRS, said FIRS would continue to ensure coherent use of digital technology across policy areas and levels of government, designed to change every facets of human lives, by increasing productivity and in eradicating crimes from our society, and also to increase tax revenue for government.
He said government would continue to invest in cybersecurity and protect the data privacy of its citizens. He looked at the significance of digitalization, and stressed the need for adequate funding of infrastructure, software and human capacity building. He however said the benefits remained always higher than the cost of investment, after it has attained full maturity.
He therefore called for the development of a strategic digital government objectives and the reinforcement of institutional capacity to manage and monitor eGovernment project implementation, and the need to assess the existing assets to guide the procurement of digital technologies. He also called for the review of the legal and regulatory frameworks to allow digital opportunities to grow.
The Managing Director/CEO, Open Access Data Centres, Dr. Ayotunde Coker, in his keynote presentation, addressed the issue of infrastructure that is driving eGovernment in Nigeria.
According to him, eGovernment is a handshake between government and the citizen and it about government using technology to provide services for the citizens. He stressed the need for ubiquitous broadband access and penetration, to drive connectivity growth across Nigeria. He said the broadband uptake of any nation largely depends on access to broadband and the enabling mobile devices. He said Nigeria already had close to 50 per cent broadband penetration with a target of reach 70 per cent penetration by 2025. According to Coker, Open Access Data Centres is concerned about connectivity through its mega data centre that is located in Lagos, with branches in other countries of the world. He also talked about the converged open digital infrastructure that brings connectivity and data centres together.
Deputy Managing Director, Huawei Technologies Nigeria Ltd, Mr. Olanrewaju Odekunle, in his keynote presentation, said since Huawei entered the Nigerian market in 1999, it has been actively involved in the development of local infrastructure in Nigeria. According to him, Huawei witnessed Nigeria transforming from 2G to 3G, and from 3G to 4G and of recent, 5G.
He said Nigeria would therefore need digital literacy and human development campaigns to drive eGovernment initiative. He called on Nigerian government to develop the National eGovernment Cloud of China as a model for its National eGovernment Strategy. He also advised that all government regulatory agencies be modeled towards public service agencies that will be providing digital and essential social services to the people, just the way it is done in China.
Technology Transfer
Speaking about technology transfer during an interactive session at the summit, Odekunle said Huawei had in the past years, trained several Nigerian youths on new technologies, including its developmental project, where it trained Nigerian women on Information and Communications Technology (ICT). He said Huawei established massive training centres in Lagos and Abuja purposely for training Nigerians on ICT and to enhance technology transfer.
“In terms of technology transfer, we are also working with the federal government to execute its project that is designed to train one million Nigerians on digital skills. Some of the trainees will be sent to China for further training, while some will be employed by Huawei after the training,” Odekunle said.
Group Managing Director, Intertel Nigeria Ltd, Dr. Abdlrazaq Ayodeji Shittu, one of the participants who disagreed with the idea of technology transfer from foreign companies to Nigerian youths, said Nigeria must learn to develop its own indigenous technology through local content development, rather than waiting for technology transfer from China or United States of America, insisting that no foreign company would freely release its technology to another country, in the name of technology transfer.
Lagos State Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Mr. Tunbosun Alake, who represented Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, said the need to develop the school system was necessary in order to boost indigenous technology, insisting that no country will want to give out its technology to other countries for free.
According to him, the Lagos State government has over the past three years, formed Research and Development (R&D) initiative in tertiary institutions across University of Lagos (UNILAG), Lagos State University (LASU), Lagos State University of Science and Technology and Yaba College of Technology, and got its first patent in 2021 in the area of medical device.
International Best Practice
Among the five panel sessions that discussed various industry issues centred around eGovernment: Pathway to a Prosperous Nation, one of the panel sessions that was chaired by the Group Managing Director/CEO, VDT Communications, Mr. Biodun Omoniyi, discussed the sub-theme: International Best Practices in eGovernment. The lead paper for the panel session was delivered by the Public Policy Manager, Anglophone West Africa at Meta, Mrs. Sade Dada, while the panelists that were made up of industry experts, discussed the subject matter.
The panelists were of the view that Nigeria should emulate global leaders in eGovernmemt process like Estonia, According to them, Nigeria does not need to become one of the top global eGovernment nations of the world in order to effectively drive eGovernment process, but could emulate them.
The panelists said Nigeria would need to replicate the global industrial revolution, and address the issues of power and internet connectivity in order to effectively deliver on best practices in eGovernance.
The panelists advised both the state and federal governments to be more committed in leveraging digital technology to drive eGovernment services.
