S’South States to Understudy, Replicate Edo’s E-governance System

South-South States under the aegis of the BRACED Commission have agreed to understudy and replicate the e-governance system emplaced by the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration in Edo State.

A statement by the government yesterday said that the programme was driving transparency, accountability, traceability and digitisation in government.

The Head of Service, Directors and Permanent Secretaries of the BRACED (Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo and Delta) Commission are meeting in Edo State for a strategy retreat, which is being held at the John Odigie Oyegun Public Service Academy, (JOOPSA) in Benin City, Edo State.

The retreat is targeted at fostering excellence in the public service as well as improving the management and leadership of the public service across the BRACED States.

Speaking to journalists, the Edo State Head of Service, Dr. Anthony Okungbowa said Edo State remains the trailblazer state in the area of digital governance in Nigeria.

He noted that the BRACED states had made a commitment to emulate and replicate the technological advancement achieved by Edo state in the next two years with the tag: “The Benin Declaration.”

Okungbowa noted: “We are here to learn from each other and copy the successes recorded by states as we leverage on each other’s strength to help deal with our weaknesses.

“This programme is intended to make the management and leadership of the public service across the BRACED States to be a lot better than before.

“We made commitment in the course of the programme. Our analysis in the strategic retreat zeroes in on what we have been doing in Edo State, particularly in technology as the other states have committed to coming back in two years to ensure their system replicates the successes recorded in Edo state in the area of technology.

“They committed that in two years’ time, their states will be like Edo state as they will ensure their systems embrace technology like Edo State did and by then have paperless governance up to the point that Edo is.”

The HoS added: “We are not remaining where we are as we are already thinking of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We are already in Edogov 2.0 as we are making progress. We hope other BRACED states leverage what we have done and run their system the way we ran ours.

“As far as digital governance is concerned, Edo is the first and trailblazer state. No state has done it before in the sub-Sahara; no subnational in Africa has achieved what we have achieved in digital governance. Edo has demonstrated that it’s possible as the state is now operating paperless, making governance easier.”

On his part, the Delta State HoS, Reginald Boyoko commended Obaseki for his developmental strides, which he said have made Edo a reference point for other states across the nation.

He stated: “In every training exercise, there are lessons to be learnt as JOOPSA is a lesson to take home after the retreat. The level of organization is something to take home as well as the expert brought to deliver lectures which was done greatly, is worth emulating.

“Our commitment as BRACED states is to motivate workers as we also have a lot to take home in this regard. I am happy that some of my colleagues accompanied me here and we have learnt a lot.”

The Permanent Secretary, Service Welfare Office of Head of Service, Rivers State who represented Rivers State HOS Dr Inyingi Iwarkama Brown said: “We are not competing against one another, but working as brother states to share ideas not to reinvent but copy from the states doing well as it will help save resources than expending resources to discover the new ideas.”