Stakeholders Urge for Increased IT Adoption in Governance

Shuaib Afolabi Salisu, CEO, Simplex Automation Systems Ltd on Tuesday said that the adoption of Information Technology (IT) would serve as enabler for transparency in governance.

Salisu disclosed this at the 2018 Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) Lagos Chapter IT Conference and Annual General Meeting, held in Lagos.

According to him, if IT is properly utilized, it will spur many things in the society and inspire new governance mechanism.

“Adoption of IT will make government to be transparent and open, making them to work better and thus will solicit the trust of its citizens.

“IT will enable citizens to participate in governance by being active in Town Hall meetings or Community Development Areas,” he said.

He listed some limitations and obstacles which could hinder the adoption of IT as: culture of secrecy in government, which had to do with institutions of government not being transparent and open in governance.

He listed others as: lack of political will to implement policies of government, lack of information laws, lack of capacity within the civil society and political leaders, which he termed messianic complacency.

Salisu said that IT could serve as a catalyst in information management by aiding government to have an efficient data gathering system and ease to disseminate information to people with the press of a button.

He noted also that IT could aid consistency of information at any point in time and encourage feedback between the citizens and government.

He listed the challenges of IT as an enabler as: poor infrastructure, high cost of internet access and low literacy rate.

He decried that Nigerian government overtime instituted a lot of noble initiatives to move the country forward but lacked the will to implement these initiatives.

He also urged NCS to engage government constructively by having some applications that would have proof of concept from the tertiary institutions in the country.

Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, Lagos State Governor, speaking at the event, said that IT was a major tool for transparency and urged other stakeholders to adopt IT

Ambode who was represented by Mr Hakeem Fahm, Commissioner of Science and Technology, said that one of the milestone of global innovations of the last century was development of ICT tools, platforms and applications which had brought about significant change in the way we do things.

“There is no gainsaying that  ICT has impacted significantly on governance in terms of the enhancement of ease of processes and a procedure which translates into improved service delivery to the people.

“In recent time, they had to introduce e-payment platform to the public to reduce the stress and traffic being faced when making payment in banks.

“Other several e-platforms and portals introduced by government are consistent with the smartcity project which enhances transparency and accountability in governance.

“A major positive effect of all these is the increase in the actual revenue being generated by government which translates to improved quality of life through the massive investment being made in the physical and social infrastructure development,” he said.

The President NCS, Prof. Adesola Aderounmu, urged stakeholders to be abreast of the changes in the industry and move with the changes.

According to him, there is no room for complacency as one needs to move at the speed the industry is moving, urging members to commit themselves to the affairs of the society.