The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is stepping up efforts to establish a one-stop-shop portal for all government services as part of its ongoing commitment to implementing the current administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda, specifically in the area of enhancing governance for efficient service delivery
The project is in line with the President’s direction to digitise 75% of government services by 2027, a goal that many stakeholders are currently actively pursuing.
This was revealed when a delegation from the Ukrainian Embassy in Nigeria, headed by its ambassador, Mr. Ivan Kholostenko, visited the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters in Abuja with the DG NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa and his team to discuss potential areas of cooperation between the two nations on how to improve government processes’ productivity, transparency, and trust.
The NITDA DG pointed out that the Agency has been instrumental in forming the design, standard criteria, and implementation methods for the construction of a centralised e-government portal, like OneGove.net, despite years of efforts to create such a portal.
Nonetheless, he claimed that the motivation to pursue the goal has been rekindled by a fresh dedication and in-depth study of international best practices.
“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,” the DG said, adding that the Agency has been studying how other nations have successfully implemented the unified digital government services platform.
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Proposing an introduction of legal frameworks to back up the initiative, Inuwa disclosed that 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.
“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,” he averred.
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 concluded.
In his remark, Mr Kholostenko 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.
