On Lagos ICT Initiative

By Tayo Ogunbiyi

The Information and Communication Technology, ICT, sector remains a fast growing area with limitless possibilities for national and international development. Today, ICT is  effectively showing new dimensions to old institutional arrangements. Many countries are exploring the platform of ICT to veer into e-Governance  which is the application of ICT by government to deliver public services, exchange of information, facilitate transactions among others. e-Governance makes government services available to the citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. ICT aids government, private enterprises and individuals to improve upon their services and output. As a result of falling ICT costs and the evolution of affordable open source software, e-government is now helping now to tackle daily challenges in less cumbersome ways.

 It is in view of the boundless opportunities ICT offers that the Lagos State Government has been making concerted efforts to explore its potentials in various aspects of governance.  To this end, the State Government recently strengthened its relationship with global ICT firm, Oracle Corporation,  at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to deploy the technology firm’s products in delivering services to the people of the state. The between the partnership between Lagos State and Oracle dates back to 2001 when the state first deployed Oracle e-business suit, ebs, to run all the state financial, human resource, purchasing, inventory  management, fixed assets and others. Deployment of Oracle ebs, in  their shared services platform, offers a  single platform that serves all facets of the government, increasing effectiveness, efficiency and lowering cost.

Right now, the state government is mapping out strategies to improve its internally generated revenue, IGR, through the adoption of Oracle applications. Since the adoption of financial and audit management solutions provided by Oracle in 2005, the State Government has successfully been blocking  human related loopholes in its internal revenue generation processes. Consequently, the state has made exponential growth in terms of revenue generation, but government is currently thinking about a biometric process that will help fish out idle civil servants as well as help in updating its tax payers’ base, currently at three million out of (estimated) 21 million residents.

The State Government is also exploring ICT  to consolidate its smart city initiative.  With Lagos population growing in leaps and bounds, software solutions come handy in building  a smart city for the state. Smart city is tailored on how best the state government can exploit information to optimise the delivery of city services. Smart city solutions, if deployed, can monitor, measure and manage nearly any physical system at work in the state. Oracle and other renowned ICT firms, using hardware, software and services capabilities together with deep industry expertise can actually help reduce traffic gridlocks and air pollution, digitise health records to improve overall patient care, improve access to, and quality of, education, enhance security systems to reduce crime rate, source and manage power more intelligently and improve quality, supply and access to water.

 Similarly, in line with the United Nation’s (UN) Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, the state government has deployed ICT into the agricultural sector for improved productivity. To this end, it has put in place an agrinet project for farmers in the state to fast-track the dissemination of agricultural and natural resources information and technologies to farmers, upland dwellers, and rural entrepreneurs. Through this, government now makes information on all agro products in Lagos available electronically  to provide strategic information for farmers, government authorities, and other stakeholders at the state and local government  levels. To consolidate the process,  government is developing and promoting ICT skills development among agricultural extension workers and farmers as well as develop a monitoring and evaluation system for sustainable utilisation of natural resources in agricultural production process.

The state government is equally exploring ICT in issues relating to land administration in the state. It has launched the cadastral mapping and GIS (geo information survey) scheme in the office of the Surveyor General of the state. Since the manual land documentation system is slowed down by physical submission and retrieval of land information for processing land titles, particularly Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), the state government is now embracing the electronic option for land documentation. With the new development, at the punch of a button  information on all land in the state could be gotten while the bottlenecks usually associated with land documentation are gone.

 To consolidate on current gains in the deployment of ICT, the state government and  Oracle Corporation have unveiled a project that takes the government’s e-Governance initiatives to another level. It is a three-fold human capacity initiative which include Lagos State Oracle University for the employees of the state, Oracle Workforce Development Programme for fresh graduates of universities/polytechnics and the Oracle Academy for universities, tertiary institutions and selected secondary schools in the state.

Similarly, the state government has established a ‘Digital Village’ at Alausa, Ikeja as well as a e-Learning Centre in CMS, Lagos Island, for interested residents, especially the youths to further have the opportunity of exploring the unbelievable potentials of ICT. The major goal of the village is to raise a new generation of youth who are sufficiently versatile with appropriate IT skills to be positioned for personal development and active participation in nation building.  Right now, there is a shortage of some 2 million IT professionals in the world. Therefore, encouraging more people to take interest in ICT, through training and skills development is a welcome way to deal with that deficit. Also, there is a Ministry of Science and Technology, at the Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, which handles all ICT related matters on behalf of the state government. Indeed, every ministry, in the state, has an ICT unit that coordinates all ICT related issues, including staff training, acquisition of ICT tools, maintenance of ICT equipment among others.

As it has been previously stated, the ICT sector is a fast growing one with unlimited possibilities. Consequently, governments across the land, need to do more in promoting ICT skills in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. The curricula need to reinforce each other at different levels, from computer camps for pre-high school or secondary school students, to ICT classes for high school students right through to mentoring and sponsoring. This needs to be complemented by investment in vocational training.  In same vein, governments across all levels need also to invest in on-the-job and industry-based training initiatives with a focus on promoting advanced ICT skills. This could be done in partnership with the private sector.

•Ogunbiyi wrote from Features Unit Ministry of Information & Strategy, Ikeja, Lagos