NITDA Reiterates Commitment To Adopting Digital Transformation

LAGOS – In its continued commitment to­wards the implementation of the present administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly in the area of improving governance for ef­fective service delivery, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), is intensifying efforts to create a one-stop-shop portal for all government services.

The initiative aligns with the Pres­ident’s directive to digitise 75% of government services by 2027, a target that is now actively being pursued by various stakeholders.

This was made known when the Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa CCIE and his team played host to a delegation from the Ukrainian Em­bassy in Nigeria led by its ambassador, Mr Ivan Kholostenko to the Corporate Headquarters of the Agency in Abuja to discuss possible areas of collabora­tion between the two countries on ways of enhancing productivity, transparen­cy and trust in government processes.

Despite efforts made for several years at establishing a centralised e-government portal such as the One­Gove.net, the NITDA Director Gen­eral, noted that the Agency has been playing a pivotal role in shaping the design, standard guidelines, and im­plementation strategies towards its establishment.

He, however, stated that renewed commitment and extensive research into global best practices have reignited the drive for pursuing the agenda.

While stating that the Agency has been doing research on how other countries have been able to imple­ment the unified digital government services platform, the Director Gener­al 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.”

“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.

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