Korean Agency urges Nigeria to implement e-governance master plan

The Nigerian government has been called upon to implement e-government 2.0 Master Plan for effective governance in the country.

The Project Manager, Professor of Computer Science from Sangmyung University in South Korea, Hung Kook Park, made the call in Abuja, during a 2-day Workshop on Building Foundation Towards Digital Governance in Nigeria.

The event was organized by Korea International Cooperation Agency KOICA in Collaboration with the Nigerian Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

Professor Park added that the digital transformation of the e-government Master Plan continues to hold impacts of improving public service efficiency in Nigeria and beyond, hence the need for the implementation of the project.

“1.0 E-government plan has already being completed in 2014 but eight years past only one initiative was successfully implemented as the Nigerian government adopts the recommendations which is establishment of Presidential Council for e-government”. Professor Hung Kook Park stated

The Project Manager also emphasized the importance of economic diversification in the country considering the huge natural and human potentials that Nigeria has to avoid being over-dependent on a single resource to move the country forwards.

“The Successful implementation of e-government Master Plan 2.0 in Nigeria which has 200 million population is very important at this point, it can change the structures of the economy from oil dependence to diversification, tackle corruption, through transparency and reduce the cost of governance for effective use of national recourses which bring efficiency in governance.  

“Korea with 50 million population doesn’t have natural resources but manage to effectively utilize its human resources and make the country growth economically with the implementation of e-governance in all the services that citizens enjoy”.  Project Manager emphasised

The Director e-government Department from the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr Aremu Ade, said, the second phase Workshop will equip Nigeria with what transpired in the phase one project and get insights into what to do on its next line of action for better service delivery to Nigerians.

“The Utilization of Information and Communication Technology ICT to drive transparency in governance to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of public service delivery is essential for the 2.0 e-government Master Plan.

“For Nigeria to be ranked high among the comity of nations in the e-government Development Index, there is need for the full scale inclusion, participation and implementation of the Second Phase of the Master Plan initiative”. Mr. Aremu Ade, stated

Mr. Aremu explained that, Nigeria and Korea International Cooperation Agency KOICA had developed and implemented the 1st phase Master plan from 2014 to 2019, which has led to the signing of Memorandum of Understanding MOUs in 2021.

Country Director of the Korea International Cooperation Agency KOICA, Mr. Son Sungil, called on more collaboration from stakeholders of the workshop to implement the initiative for effective and good governance in Nigeria.

“The Digital transformation of the government will require collaboration and commitment from all stakeholders including government agencies, private sectors and citizens, this collaborative approach is necessary in order to ensure the successful implementation of the Nigeria e-government Master Plan and also Support the continues improvement and evolution of the plan as technology advances”. Mr. Son Sungil, said

One of the participants at the Workshop, and Chief Programme Analyst, from the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Ms. Oyindamola Sogunro, expressed her optimism that, the project is going to benefit the country.

“The Workshop is  successful we were able to achieve all the objectives of the projects, and bring about over seventy three participants from different Ministries and Agencies, we were able to discuss let them understand what we have so far get usable and concrete contributions from the participants directly to the document which are going to prepare, we were able to achieve the voting for the new initiative which will go to e-government Master Plan 2.0 document and will help in cost reduction, efficiency, transparency and tackling corruption in the Nigeria”.  Ms. Oyindamola Sogunro, explained

The e-government Master Plan is a comprehensive strategy which can be used by government to re-engineer the e-government agenda to direct the citizens’ centric deployment on ICT in governance to improve public services and democratic process.