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| title |
Challenges for Electronic Governance |
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| speaker |
Mr. Obi Thompson |
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| affiliation |
Interstellar Communications Limited |
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| abstract |
This presentation attempts to bring to fore some challenges
to electronic governance development in Nigeria where prior
experience in this area does not exist, with benefit of such
undertaking lacking. Two groups of challenges were identified.
Group A includes: Building e-Governance environment,
which entails both human and technical challenges;
Service Availability, Affordability and Regulatory issues;
Reorientation to avoid damages to the system due to corrupt
cultural habituation in public service, and legislation to
discourage sabotage of e-governance infrastructures;
e-governance capacity and support system building.
Group B challenges include: Brazing up for e-hazards and;
Cyber security issues.
The variously identified challenges were based on prevailing
conditions in Nigeria with respect to telecommunications
infrastructure availability nation-wide and extent of regulatory
intervention to services offering by telecoms providers and
technologies deployed. Solutions were suggested to the variously
identified challenges including development of local content,
manufacture of hardware and software locally and implementation of
trust points/VPNs with the national e-government network. The paper
concluded by ascertaining that
Nigeria should not see the global trend towards e-governance
as an attractive fad; nor should we hastily jump into the
'e-bandwagon'.
There is lot of work to be done in order to make our national
e-governance program workable, economically sustainable, efficient, and safe for our purposes.
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| slides |
download |
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| bio |
Mr. Thompson holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering,
an MBA in Management Science, a Post Graduate Diploma in Systems
Development and Planning, and an MS in Technology Applications (Management Information Systems).
Mr. Thompson has several years of Systems Development,
and management experience in aerospace industry in the United States
of America. He joined Rockwell International (North American Aircraft
Operations, Los Angeles, CA) in 1979 as an Industrial Engineer in
the Standards and Processes Department. Over the years, he underwent
various work related management training programs; and by 1988,
he had risen to the level of Manager, Management Controls.
His wealth of experience has made imprints on Nigeria.
He was the first indigenous consultant to the National Productivity
Center after the UNDP experts left the project. He played a decisive
role in getting the Center accredited by the ILO as a training center in the West African sub region.
He has also rendered technical support services as Senior Consultant
to many federal government agencies over the past 15 years. |
