Assessing Nigeria’s Readiness for Government 2.0: NITDA’s role
“Transforming governments is not easy. While technology alone cannot transform governments, governments today cannot transform without technology. In the fast paced world of technology, new approaches constantly extend the boundaries of what is possible. The pace of change is evidenced by the fact that terms like SOA, WOA, community sourcing, cloud computing, software-as-a-service, and Web 2.0 that seem almost common place today, were not in the lexicon only a few years ago. It would be good to step back and take a dispassionate view of where the practice of government is heading.” … World Bank
Preambles:
Transformational government is taking root in the heart of government’s relationship with its citizens and businesses alike as well as within government. Governments are realising that in today’s information based environment; there is an overwhelming need for transformation in its processes and procedures toward rendering quality, efficient and cost effective services to its clients wherever they are regardless of time and space.
The attendant limitations with past governments attempt to reach its boundless clientele is being eroded by the use of technology; hence, government transformation today is facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICT). The adoption and use of ICT in recent times by government has helped to engage citizens and businesses as well as agencies of government in the process of governance.
Technology has made it possible for government to involve the governed in the process of governance; thus making them stakeholders as well as collaborative customers to the services of government. It is also important to note that, there is marked increase in citizens participation in the democratic process as well as in the policy making process (formation & implementation) toward a broad-based participatory governance/democracy.
Government 2.0
The resounding success of the Web 2.0 and its allied technologies in the business environment in recent times can be seen as the precursor to the current drive for a Government 2.0 adoption. In my definition, Government 2.0 is government’s opening up of its processes and procedures toward seeking greater participation of the citizenry and businesses; through conscious use of social networks, blogs, wiki(s) and other informational technologies. It is expected that this opening up of government processes will enhance citizens’ participation in governance; thus bringing government and governance closer to the people.
NITDA
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), is Nigeria agency charged with facilitation of the National Policy for Information Technology (IT) Nigeria. The IT policy was adopted by the then government of President Olusegun Obasanjo in March 2001 as the main policy document that will direct the development of IT in Nigeria. NITDA was established April 2001.
The enabling law of the National Assembly known as the National Information Technology Development Act of 2007 was later enacted formally establishing the National Information Technology Development Agency and empowering it to plan, develop and promote the use of Information Technology in Nigeria.
NITDA’s Mandate:
Accordingly, the Agency is mandated to plan, develop and promote the use of Information Technology in Nigeria; thus it is written that NITDA shall amongst other things be at the forefront of prescribing and charting the course of our development in information technologies as they evolve. It is an established fact that Government 2.0 is emerging as a phenomenon in government technology sphere. Hence, in this era of government transformation, it is not only expected it is the duty of the NITDA to ensure that the government of Nigeria is strategically positioned to take advantage of this technology to transform itself if it is serious about attaining the much touted Vision 2020 (becoming one of the top 20 economies in the world by 2020).
Plan, Develop and Promote
Section 6(a) states thus : “NITDA shall create a frame work for the planning, research, development, standardization, application, coordination, monitoring, evaluation and regulation of Information Technology practices, activities and systems in Nigeria and all matters related thereto and for that purpose, and which without detracting from the generality of the foregoing shall include providing universal access for Information Technology and systems penetration including rural, urban and under-served areas”.
The above provision of the act sums up in part the mandate of the Agency; other sub-sections of 6 as above delved into establishment and facilitation of infrastructure; development of guidelines for electronic governance; creating incentives for the adoption and usage of ICT in public and private sectors and most importantly accelerate Internet and Intranet penetration in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Readiness:
The Agency is to spear-head the planning, development and promotion of the IT policy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; the act empowers it to advice government at all levels to have strategies in place for adoption and use of IT to enhance their service delivery to citizen and businesses in their local environment and the wider populace.
Typical of most agencies of government, the NITDA has been awash with seminars and workshops aimed at building capacity for the task on hand; only recently the NITDA management received a report on ICT for Development (ICT4D) strategy/plan. It is expected that the ICT4D plan will be targeted to use ICT to actualise part of the 7 point agenda towards vision 2020. As good as such strategies/plans are we need to move beyond that and start implementing the mandates.
Topmost on the mandate is addressing the establishment and maintenance of infrastructure which will ultimately drive the ICT for development; as expected it is one of the three strategic angles in the NITDA’s capacity building initiative, the others are institution and human resources capacity building respectively.
It will be recall that this strategic capacity building agenda dates back to 2004 when it was first initiated; however, with all honesty if it takes this long to produce a strategy document in today’s fast paced informational environment, the 7 point agenda and the vision 2020 will be a mirage. There is the need for the agency and other government department involved in the establishment of infrastructure to move faster from the drawing board and build real and tangible capacity by providing the needed infrastructure for the technologies to be harnessed.
Having the infrastructure on the ground gives impetus to government, citizens and businesses to adopt and use of ICT in their interactions with each others as partners and collaborative customers and clients in the governance project. It is the role of NITDA to make this synergy possible by ‘creating incentives for the adoption and usage of ICT in public and private sectors’ in Nigeria. The availability of infrastructure will go a long way to enhance in openness government via the ease of communication and interaction which the adoption and usage of ICT brings to the government and the governed.
NITDA is also charged with the responsibility of ‘accelerating internet and intranet penetration in Nigeria’. Availability of the network infrastructure on which the internet runs has remained elusive and where available the cost of bandwidth is beyond the reach of the citizens and most businesses. There is therefore the need to address the issue of internet penetration and NITDA’s role here includes advising government and the appropriate authorities on the cost effective, efficient and faster ways of deploying these technologies to the benefit of the people.
Government 2.0 can only be a reality when the internet and allied technologies are available and affordable to the government, businesses and citizens. Under the present circumstance in Nigeria, one cannot see light in the tunnel to boldly declare that Nigeria is ready to take advantages of open government which Government 2.0 offers.
Understandably, NITDA is an agency of government and have its constraints and limitations; thus, the onus is on the government of the day to be honest about implementing policy to the later. Much has been said about Nigeria’s problems not being about ‘policy formulation’ but its ‘implementation’. If we must leverage on the benefits accrual to the use and adoption of ICT for development; then the government should be ready to invest on infrastructure as well as create the enabling environment for its propagation.
Government 2.0 is the next big thing in government, governance and the governed; it is going to revolutionise how government interacts, provides services and even how policy is formulated. It is also expected to increase citizens and businesses participation in governance. In Nigeria’s case it will go a long way to help broaden and deepen our democracy. The time to act and be proactive is now.
Having seen the strategic role of NITDA as the planner, creator and developer of our IT policy; do you think Nigeria is ready to take advantages of Government 2.0 toward enhancing openness in government?
very sound entry. It appears it pays the Nigerian governement to keep collecting data poorly and essentially have a black box of her activities. i have refered to this in the past as variant of the public good fallacy. I hope something happens that proves me wrong.