Date Published: 01/13/10

The E-Governance Nightmare in Bayelsa State By Dr. Theophilus Ebikebina 

 Sometime in September, 2009, I visited India. In that visit, I took time out to see the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Parks in India. I saw the magic of ICT from Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, Bangalore, Kolkata to New Delhi, India the second most populous country in the world with a population of more than 1.417 million people is an ICT paradise. As an ICT crazy person, I regarded with envy the thriving ICT Institutes/Colleges in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab Chanigarth Karnataka and scores of such places in India. When I asked questions about how India started to export ICT to Africa, Europe and America, I then discovered that it was a trinity of political commitment, entrepreneurship as found expression in the diligence of the citizens and patriotism India is a developing country like Nigeria. I find it really difficult to believe that whereas Nigeria does not have even one sophisticated ICT Park, India has well over 37 ICT Parks and about 65 Information and Communication Technology Institutes. Presently, India rakes in huge revenues from ICT, comparable to Nigeria’s crude oil. 

Nigeria’s National Policy for IT was produced by the Nigerian Information and Communication Technology Agency (NICTA).The key strategies outlined in the policy document include establishing a National Information Technology Development Fund (NITDEF); establishing a National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA); creating IT Parks with the infrastructure, services, training and management necessary to harness the power of IT; and restructuring relations between government, business and the general public through the use of IT in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of governance, commerce and the provision of services.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was established by the Federal Government on April 18, 2001 to ensure the implementation of the policy and to coordinate and regulate the development of the Information Technology sector. Furthermore, the National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategic Action Plan Committee was inaugurated on August 7 2003 and has been a critical step in the implementation of the National IT Policy. This committee was mandated to draw up an e-strategy action plan and programmes that compliment national development objectives and priorities, to recommend potentially successful projects and programmes on a sector-by-sector basis whose implementation would drive ICT growth in Nigeria, and to develop bench marks, deliverables and timelines for the Strategic Action Plan and Programme. The overall goal of the policy is to make Nigeria an IT capable country in Africa and a key player in the Information Society. The policy was designed to be the engine for sustainable development and global competitiveness. Sadly, however, since 2005, when the ICT policy was formulated  not much has been achieved in terms of concrete deliverables. 

E-governance is a term used to designate the use of information and communication technologies to transform government by making it more accessible, effective, efficient and accountable. Because E-Governance has become a global phenomenon developing countries are increasingly looking for strategies to reduce operational costs of official transactions and improve service delivery services to their people. Among the Asian Tigers, e-Governance is reinventing the business of government through new ways of integrating information and making it accessible over networks and the Internet, procurement and delivering services. It also transforms the nature of governance by affecting the roles and relationship between state and citizens and state and businesses.

The overarching objectives of e-governance are to improve the internal organizational processes of governments at all levels, provide better information and service delivery, increase government transparency in order to reduce corruption, reinforce political credibility and accountability, and promote democratic practices through public participation and consultation among other functions of governance. E-Governance is also major instrument for achieving good governance accompanied by important investments in ICT canbe an important source of productivity growth and economic growth along with economic development and democracy. It canprovide a veritable framework for organizing comprehensive e-reform, starting with government and the public sector especially in the rural areas.  

Broadly speaking, electronic government can include all information and communication technology (ICT) to support government operations, engage citizens, and provide government services. Thereby, broader approach embraces the whole range of governance and administrative projects including e-services, e-democracy, e-voting, e-justice and in some way even e-education or e-healthcare. Clearly, e-government is much more than gathering the information, downloading files or making online transaction. These trends suggest that private and public organizations in developing countries have to reinvent themselves through ‘continuous innovation’ in order to sustain themselves and achieve strategic competitive advantage. 

In an attempt to reinvent itself to meet the challenges of governance in a globalized world, the existing e-Governance Bureau with the sole mission of working towards the Sustainable Development of Bayelsa State by ensuring procurement best practice on the part of all government departments; enabling Sustainable Development through the integration of ICT solutions state-wide; and ensuring that the state sustainable development strategy is properly and adequately deployed. The challenges of entrenching due process in governance in a clime widely identified with mal-governance and high level corruption is indeed daunting.  

The old model of ICT in government consisted of automating the internal, back-office, and working of government by processing data, similarly to private sector enterprises. The new model is one of ICT supporting and transforming the external working of governance by processing and communicating information and data and providing interactive services through multiple channels. Hence, capacity building programme initiatives should be in place to help local authorities develop and deliver successful and sustainable e-Government projects and programmes by assisting authorities in changing their organization by embedding the governance and capacity that is essential to improve outcomes, deliver to time and budget; and to sustain long term, successful e-Government in today’s information and knowledge driven economies 

The Due Process and e-Governance Bureau has been facing massive criticisms from the relevant publics due largely to numerous factors. Basically, there exists a lacuna necessitated by lack information flow between the people and government. This is aggravated by the so-called digital divide which is conceptualized as a skills and resource access gap between digitally literate and digitally illiterate classes in society.  It is argued that this divide is not new.  The digital divide is in many respects the great equalizer between developing and developed nations. It aggravates traditional functional illiteracy, but technology as the basis of the digital divide can also facilitate the achievement of functional literacy if it is used optimally. It is further argued that technology is just another tool like other policy instruments that can be employed constructively or abused by government in trying to achieve its goals. It can be both an obstructive and a facilitative factor in development, and its application must therefore be done in circumspect ways in order to maximize success with developmental efforts. 

Although the notion of failure can vary significantly according to context, time and viewpoint, it is useful to loosely define what is meant by it for the purposes of this ‘pedestrian’ reassessment. Thus e-government failure is defined as the inability of such a system to achieve predefined goals, or other previously unanticipated benefits. The disturbing reality in the Bayelsa state context is that a large chunk of the limited resources at the government’s disposal is being wastefully spent on the Bureau without tangible benefits, the data being brandished by the e-governance led ‘e-governance enterprise’ has not met the expectations of the ordinary Bayelsan who was suppose to be the focus of such policies. It may be too blunt to call the DG a misfit but e-governance is not an end in itself, but a process through governance could harmonize the polarity in the state, and bring about the over-chorused democracy dividends. Moreover, the state needed basic infrastructures like energy, good roads and functional educational system that will play the necessary sensitization role. 

A greater percentage of Bayelsans is not exposed to ICT trends and thus are hostile to electronic oriented government policies such as the e-Governance Bureau. Moreover the failure of the Federal Government to provide basic electricity in a globalized world had contributed to the general distrust towards technology centered government initiatives. Many government agencies in developed countries have taken progressive steps toward the web and ICT use, adding coherence to all local activities on the Internet, widening local access and skills, opening up interactive services for local debates, and increasing the participation of citizens on promotion and management of their territory. But that is not obtainable here because little resources is deployed towards human capital development and government officials mystify policy formulation and implementation.

As with e-commerce, e-Governance represents the introduction of a great wave of technological innovation as well as government reinvention. It represents a tremendous impetus to move forward in the 21st century with higher quality, cost effective government services and a better relationship between citizens and government. The above is the challenge begging for attention in the context of Bayelsa state, and mainstreaming the initiatives of government agencies and departments to use ICT tools and applications, Internet and mobile devices to support good governance, strengthen existing relationships and build new partnerships within civil society, cannot be overemphasized, e-Governance is information centered and participatory in nature, but the task before the Bayelsa State administration is building a united, secure and prosperous society. 
 

The potential for e-Government in developing countries, however, remains largely unexploited, even though ICT is believed to offer considerable potential for the sustainable development of e-Government. Different human, organizational and technological factors, issues and problems pertain in these countries, requiring focused studies and appropriate approaches. ICT, in general, is referred to as an “enabler”, but on the other hand it should also be regarded as a challenge and a peril in itself. With sincerity of purpose, technocracy, and public participation in policy formulation and implementation, the stated goals will be actualized. But first, the Governor should dismantle the existing “delay process” bureau and replace it with a better equipped one or risk mass protest. 

While there is much hype about success stories, the bitter truth is that majority of e-government projects in developing countries fail. As far as E-Governance and ICT are concerned, Bayelsa State has not taken off. If e-governance means information technologies that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, government and its agencies for better delivery of services to citizens, including improved transparency, greater revenue and cost reductions, then Bayelsa State got it all wrong.The present administration abolished the Science and Technology Ministry and the current efforts made by Due Process and E-governance Unit in Yenagoa are a huge joke.  

As a concerned Bayelsan, I am of the view that in any development process, Bayelsa State should deploy available resources to the most critical sectors of the economy until the much-needed infrastructure are provided. Presently, the State has to fix its physical and social infrastructure especially good roads and power. Now that peace has returned the Bayelsa State government should consolidate on the provision of physical infrastructure to attract investors, as the resources committed to e-governance are a monumental waste. The earlier the e-Governance Bureau understands this nightmare the better for the development of the State.  

Dr. Theophilus Ebikebena is an Abuja-based Consultant.