Nasarawa Govt. reiterates commitment to e-governance, digital economy

Nasarawa State government has restated its commitment to full deployment of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in governance to ensure a robust digital economy.

Mr Yakubu Lawal, the state's Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, stated this on Friday in Lafia, when he received a team from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

The team also included officials of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy (FMCDE).

Lawal said that the state government had embarked on the training of various cadres of the workforce to be ICT compliant, as part of its efforts to achieving the goal of e-governance.

According to him, the state government is also partnering some international organisations on digital economy and other ICT-related programmes.

The commissioner thanked the team for the visit and gave assurance of government's willingness for collaboration that would ensure the development of all sectors of the state's economy.

Earlier, Mr Sungill Son, Country Director/Regional Representative of KOICA, said that they were in the state to conduct a need assessment that would ensure the training of civil servants on e-governance.

Son, represented by the Country Deputy Director, Mr Minjae Kang, said that the assessment visit was part of implementation of its project-building foundations toward digital governance in Nigeria.

He said the need assessment would enable the agency to train 100 beneficiaries, both civil servants and government officials on basic and advanced skills on e-governance for the growth and development of the state.

According to him, the visit was to enable them get basic information that would assist them to carry out an accurate survey of facilities and institutional capacity of the state for the proposed training.

"We are planning to hold the capacity building training in 2023 and we are currently in the process of selecting the number of states which will be our beneficiaries for this particular training.

"We are working in consultation with Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

"We, therefore, want you to provide the data to us which will help us with our assessment," he said.

On his part, Principal Analyst (FMCDE Project), Mr Hussein Umar, said the Federal Government was working in collaboration with KOICA to ensure the selection of benefiting states for the training.

Umar, however, said the survey was not a guarantee, but to express optimism that the state would be selected after the assessment.

In his remarks, Mr Shehu Ibrahim, Director General of Nasarrawa State's Bureau for Information and Communication Technology (BICT) disclosed that the state currently has three Computer Based Test centres.

He said that five e-libraries being used to train students on ICT skills across the state.

"We are collaborating with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and we have trained civil servants and government officials to ensure the use of ICT in our offices.

"The office of the Head of Service is one of our greatest partners on ICT and all our ministries, departments and agencies have functional ICT departments and we are getting ready for e-governance," he said.