By Godwin Otang
Experts in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) world have said it is key to effective, transparent, and good governance in Cross River State and Nigeria in general.
This was the hallmark of a Twitter space stakeholders engagement on ‘technology and good governance, innovation for transparent and effective governance’ organized by a not-for-profit organization passionate about Cross River State – The Cross River Movement (TCRM).
Addressing stakeholders at the Space, Information Technology expert and former Special Assistant to former Governor Liyel Imoke, Mr. Odo Effiong, suggested transparent e-government services to manage public procurement, financial and project management; a crusade-like approach to massive education on technology starting from basic to tertiary schools, and capacity building across education institutions of different sizes in Cross River and across Nigeria as the way forward.
“Our governance system is ridden with problems of transparency, inefficiency, bureaucracy, corruption, limited access to information, and various weak institutions seriously hindering public trust and socioeconomic development. However, technology offers us extraordinary opportunities to address all these issues and to leapfrog progressively, we need to leverage on technology,” he posited.
Odo added: “Though the technology is good, it can only be as good as those who sit behind it: what I would want the government to support is project management technology for effective project tracking using more agile methodologies and modernizing the workforce by digitally transforming its processes.”
Also speaking, Ade Olumude, opined that: “Until we get the federal government to buy into the culture of accountability, I don’t see a way forward in this dispensation; transparency is extremely very important. We have a political environment in which transparency is not the order of the day. So the culture needs to change and must be driven from the top.”
On his part, Civic Space Editor in CrossRiverWatch, Jonathan Ugbal, inferred that Cross Riverians are technology literate but take political will to achieve the needed technology development in the State.
“I can tell you that in every ward in Cross River State, we have people who know or have Facebook, Whatsapp. So Cross River is a Meta community in essence; the truism in this is that it boils down to the political will of the person who occupies the seat of Government, if they want it to work, it will work.”
On his part, the Founder of TCRM, Iso Bassey in affirmation said ICT application in governance is the way to go.
He applauded the points of the experts and sued for more participation in the pursuit of good governance in the State and Nation.
Leave feedback about this