IMPERATIVES OF E-GOVERNMENT AND THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA

1. IMPERATIVES OF E-GOVERNMENT AND THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA Prof. Chigozie C. Asiabaka, Ph.D., KSM, JP Vice-Chancellor FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, OWERRI (FUTO) NIGERIA

2. OUTLINE • Introduction. • E-Government Evolution & Framework. • Global Trends in E-Government. • UN 2012 E-Government survey result. • E-Governance in Nigeria - successes & challenges. • E-Administration in Tertiary Institutions. • Survey Results and Discussion. • Recommendations & Imperatives Actions. • Conclusions.

3. INTRODUCTION • The day-to-day business of government is built on Information. • Information is a critical resource, ranks 4th after land, labour and capital. • The advances in ICT have given us Internet, WWW, mobile phones and Cloud computing, etc. • All these have changed business, education, research, etc • Businesses can compete globally in a way we could not have dreamt of many years ago. • This e-Technology is driving the new economy but unfortunately, not everyone is benefiting. • There is a growing split or digital divide. • Today no business, whether big or small, can afford to ignore e-Technology. • E-governance has become imperative for sustainable economic development of any nation. • The future of our country therefore depends on how fast & how well we can employ e-governance.

4. E-GOVERNMENT? • E-Government is the use of ICT (Internet) in delivering government services. • The major benefits of e-government include • improved efficiency, • increase in transparency and accountability of government functions, • faster access to government services, • lower costs of administrative services, • Presently, true democracy and good governance is characterized by: • Citizen participation, rule of law, • transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, • equity, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability • and strategic vision . • All these are natural functionalities of ICT Applications (E-Gov applications). • This is confirmed by experience reports from developed countries • that E-Government is an enabler for achieving true democracy and good governance.

5. E-GOVERNMENT EVOLUTION • e-Government emerged in late 1990s, • but the history of computing in government organizations can be traced back to the 1970s. • Then the focus was on office automation, later the advances in microelectronics and telecoms, led to the emergence of Internet, cloud computing, social networks, wikis, etc. • The Internet and WWW technologies facilitated online businesses (e-commerce) in an unimaginable way. • e-business phenomenon produced billionaires-entrepreneurs in a very short period; • Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. • The successes of e-commerce subsequently motivated e-government. • Initially, it started by government entities having websites (static). • As Internet penetration grew, many sites began to focus on delivering information and services to citizens and businesses. • With more advances, online transactions were introduced. • Subsequently, it progressed to online participation, • citizens can connect with public administrators, decision-makers, and perhaps elected officials.

6. E-GOVERNMENT MODELS • As e-Government continues to evolve, the following relationships models have been identified: • Government-to-Citizen (G2C) - making information accessible to citizens online. • Government-to-Business(G2B) – for private sector to procure goods and services. • Government-to-Employee (G2E) - for coordination of internal operations • Government-to-Government(G2G) – for intergovernmental relations. national, state/provincial, and local government as in the case of humanitarian or crisis response. • With the various combinations of the above models United Nations has proposed a 4- stage framework for benchmarking the different stages in the evolution of e-government services of countries.

7. THE 4- STAGE FRAMEWORK FOR E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT

8. GLOBAL TRENDS IN E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT • Many countries have adopted E-governance. • Evidence has shown that E-government programmes boost productivity in areas such as • entrepreneurship, • innovation, • research and development, • promoting distance learning, • e-health, e-agriculture, e-trade and other fields. • The United Nations has published 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2012 global survey of e-government readiness index of its 192 countries. • The e-government readiness index is a measurement of the capacity and willingness of countries to use e-government. • e-government readiness index is used for ranking the performance of countries. • It helps for policy making and agenda setting. • And also for monitoring progress.

9. E-GOVERNMENT READINESS INDEX • E-government readiness index is calculated from • Web Measure Index: countries are ranked according to what they provide online. • Telecommunication Infrastructure Index : • PCs/1000 persons; • Internet users/1000 persons; • Telephone lines/1000 persons; • online population; • mobile phones/1000 persons; • and TV’s/1000 persons. • Human Capital Index • adult literacy rate • primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio.

10. TOP 20 LEADERS OF E-GOVERNANCE The Republic of Korea is the world leader (0.9283), followed by the Netherlands (0.9125), the

12. 25 Emerging Countries E-Governance Ranking

13. Regional comparison- Western African, Southern Asia , Western Asia countries & Western Europe . • West Africa is still far below the world average of 0.488.

14. AN OVERVIEW OF E-GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA • A lot has happened in Nigeria since the advent of mobile communication, Internet and WWW tech. • The Federal Government of Nigeria laid the foundation for ICT development by • privatization of telecom sector and auctioning GSM licenses. • With the liberalization of the telecom sector in 2000 and establishment of the sector regulator- NCC, • the teledensity increased from 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitant to more than 82 lines per 100 inhabitants in 2013. •  The GSM companies as they stabilised, started offering Internet bandwidth, • this increased Internet penetration and many new business.

15. AN OVERVIEW OF E-GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA CTD • FGN established National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA) in 2001. • Commendably, NITDA has several initiatives geared at accelerating e-government at vital agencies, institutions of government and educational institutions. • computer acquisition scheme for undergraduates, etc. •  NITDA has also published some guidelines; • National Information Systems and Network Security Standards & Guidelines • Framework Architecture & Standards for e-Government Applications. • Some other laudable National ICT projects include • training of Civil servants and lecturers, • communication satellite launch, • the most recent Broadband policy, • the NgREN to interconnect all tertiary institutions for education & research • Government organs with online services • West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), • National Examination Council (NECO) • Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) • Organised Private Sector with online services • All banks, oil companies, airlines, etc. The story is not the same for all government offices. A brief survey of the 3 tier of government is reported in the next section.

16. ACTIVE WEBSITES FOR 3 TIERS OF GOVERNMENT A web survey on the 3 tiers of government was carried out - • Presidency, Senate & House of Represent. have active websites. • 36 states websites have. • For Judiciary, only Supreme, Court of Appeal, Federal High Court, High Court of FCT have websites • The others did not have.

17. E-ADMINISTRATION IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS • Many universities in Nigeria have moved from static websites to interactive Portals to improve educational delivery. • The NUC has also established a one-stop shop Portal for all Universities. • For FUTO, my mantra is “The Quest for Excellence” and one of my focus areas is • the provision and use of ICT for full computerization of University functions. • For now, we have deployed • Campus-wide Wi-Fi for Internet access, • Redesigned University Website, • Portal for academic activities for staff and students. • Online Transcript Processing system. • Online undergraduate and postgraduate admissions. • The University Senate, school boards all have e-meetings, • this has reduced cost of paper. • My ultimate target is to have a paperless office. • A lot more can be done with the availability of more financial resources.

18. DISCUSSION • Although, many government organs are enthusiastic about e-Government, • it still remains a challenge for them to implement. • This is because of several reasons; • one of which is that because of scarce financial resources, expenditure on provision of safe water, rural health and basic educational services are usually preferred to that of ICT infrastructure. • Another reason is the fear that the project may fail, because many e-government projects fail, even in developed countries. • Nevertheless, there are many successful e-government projects to learn lessons from. • Another obstacle is that human beings resist change, • deployment of e-Government involves computer-based technologies and human-based administrative processes to create new ways of serving the citizens. • This requires learning and changing the usual way of working, this is difficult for the ageing population in government offices who are not computer literate. • This situation arose because of the government embargo on employment for many years. • From the UN surveys, 2004 - 2012, Nigeria is in Stage 1- Emerging Presence, and we rank 163 out of 192 countries. • This situation can be reversed, it depends on the priority Federal and State governments place on it. • The LGAs have to be pulled on board too, • because they have key roles to play in providing grass-root information on basic items such as: • numbering of houses, taxes on shops, • cleaning and maintenance of roads, • health care, primary and adult education, • birth, death and marriage certificates.

19. DISCUSSION CTD: E-GOVERNANCE AND THE FUTURE OF NIGERIAvery bright - huge market- large population, baby boom is continuing! • E-Government Applications for Nigeria. • The future of Nigeria is very bright. • Several potential applications • Few Nigerian companies practicing e-commerce are reaping huge profits & delivering improved quality of service. • Before 1999, people had to take one whole day off to go to bank, • With online & mobile banking, ATMs, queues have virtually disappeared.

20. BENEFITS OF E-GOVERMENT

21. RECOMMENDATIONS & IMPERATIVES FOR GOVERNMENT • Provision of enabling legislation: • adequate laws should be made to ensure all government institution migrate to e-government on or before a given date. • Cybercrime should be punished according to the Law. • Greater interactivity with government officials & centralised database system: • it should be noted that the government is for the people. • “Government should place greater emphasis on institutional linkages among the tiered government structures in a bid to create synergy for inclusive sustainable development.” • Centralized databases and standards should become available to government agencies to remove duplication. • Bureaucratic structures need to be transformed into horizontal integrated systems for transparency and accountability. • Provision of steady power supply: • Adequate power supply should be ensured Ict systems cannot function without power. • Provision of affordable broadband infrastructure : • Broadband infrastructure is an enabler for economic and social growth in the digital economy • The recent FGN National Broadband is highly commended and implementation should be given top priority.

22. THE IMPERATIVES FOR GOVERNMENT • Proper financing of ICT: • cost of ICT infrastructure is usually high, it must be put in the budget. • It is also very import to budget for support and maintenance costs. • Appropriate staffing and establishment of ICT units in Organisations: • The establishment of ICT departments in all ministries and parastatals at the Federal, State and Local government levels should be made mandatory. • Use of Established System Development Practices: • E-governance is an ICT project and many ICT projects fail because standard processes for System development life cycle have not been followed. • All Government organs should have strategic plans and ICT Policies well aligned with organizational operations. • Provide a Secure Experience for Web Visitors: • Any computer connected to the Internet is vulnerable to virus/worm infection or attack, as a result appropriate firewalls and information security system must be put in place. • This is in addition to back up and recovery procedures.

23. CONCLUSIONS • It cannot be disputed that e-governance is the right way to go. • Nigeria has started moving towards this direction, and the relevant organs of government in charge of ICT and e-governance are commended for what they have achieved so far. • It is vital for our government to learn from global best practices and collaborate internationally to develop a harmonized framework with indigenous ICT content. • The UN ranking on e-governance development in 2012, placed Nigeria, 163 out of 192 countries. • This position can be reversed if the imperative actions recommended are given priority by all tiers of government. • This will strengthen good governance with broad based public participation, improve quality of life for the entire citizenry, more jobs opportunities will emerge for the youth and poverty and crime will naturally reduce.

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