By The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has given reasons for the delayed take-off of a unified digital government services platform in the country.
Director General of NITDA, Mr kashifu Inuwa said:“We have been doing research on how UK, Kenya and other countries have achieved this, so I believe we can learn from you as well to see how we can build our own.”
Inuwa revealed while hosting the a delegation from the Ukrainian Embassy in Nigeria led by its ambassador, Mr Ivan Kholostenko that the Agency has been doing research on how other countries have been able to implement the unified digital government services platform.
“While such models are not entirely transferable between nations, we can learn from their experiences to develop a framework that works for Nigeria,” he added.
According to him, NITDA is proposing an introduction of legal frameworks to back up the initiative, saying NITDA has identified multiple models from other nations that allows government agencies to provide services through an Application Programming Interface (API) while other countries provide services exclusively through designated portals backed by law.
He noted, “If we want to achieve this, we need to have these laws in place and kickstart the process of enacting the laws in other to facilitate a smooth and effective digital transformation.”
Inuwa also disclosed that the agency is engaging with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to ensure alignment with global digital governance standards and the engagement is expected to provide valuable expertise and insights into structuring Nigeria’s digital transformation roadmap.
“This initiative is seen as a critical step towards enhancing efficiency, reducing corruption, and promoting transparency in government operations. By leveraging global best practices in alignment with national policies and digital transformation goals, Nigeria will have a smart, seamless and citizen-friendly government service experience, “he stated.
Earlier in his remark, the Ukraine envoy said that Ukraine runs a digital platform known as the Diia application which is an ecosystem that encompasses all of the state registers, databases and can perform all the state and government services for citizens in one place.
He disclosed that it is the intention of his country through its Ministry of Digital Transformation to expand the reach of this initiative and provide full support for other countries to create such kind of system.
“I want to note that we are interested to expand and help other countries to make a digital state, reduce bureaucracy, reduce time for getting state services and of course, to reduce corruption risks, because human-to-human interaction is minimal,” he said.
