Nigeria Content Online

To
ensure effective delivery internet services, management of congestion
on its network and exploit the potentials of ‘connected government’,
the federal government has entered into a broadband access partnership
with the first submarine cable company in West Africa, Main One Cable
Limited. Oladapo Afolabi, head of the Civil Service of the federation
at the launch of the partnership last week in Abuja said the civil
service would utilize the opportunity in addressing the myriad of
challenges, which he said had continued to plague and hamper its
abilities to deliver on government programmes. He noted that an
evolutionary aspect of e-government is the concept of the ‘connected
government which he said “ is driven by the realization that the
increased connecting power of ICT had enabled a shift in orientation
from the vertical to the horizontal, from predominantly intra-agency
interactions to increasingly inter-agency, cross-government
interactions.”

Connecting power

The
head of service stressed that the horizontal connecting power of ICT is
emerging as a driver of fundamental changes in the way the business of
government operates and the way governments provide services to and
interact with their citizens.

“Connected
government is now the dominant theme in e-government, according to a
recent United Nations e-government survey. Connected government
emphasizes the benefits of seeking to make the whole more than the sum
of the parts by creating connected governance mechanisms aimed at
orchestrated otherwise disjointed e-government themes.”

Mr.
Afolabi explained that “Galaxy Backbone was established in 2006 as a
government owned company and charged to deliver connectivity and other
information and communications technology infrastructure to ministries,
departments and agencies (MDAs) of government and currently has up to
300 MDAs connected to its ONEGOV.net network in over 3000 office
locations in the public service.”

Main
One Optic Fibre cable system is capable of transmitting and enabling
access to broadband internet at a speed of almost 5 terabytes per
second-which is much faster than what is currently available in Europe
and will deliver up to 10 times more capacity than what is currently
available here in Nigeria. The partnership would save over 65 per cent
of previous charges spent by government to expand its networks in over
3,000 offices located in the public service.

Broadband internet

“On
the other hand, Main One Optic Fibre cable system is capable of
transmitting and enabling access to broadband internet at a speed of
almost 5 terabytes per second-which is much faster than what is
currently available in Europe and will deliver up to 10 times more
capacity than what is currently available here in Nigeria.”

Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, Secretary to the Government of the Federation
who spoke at the occasion said the partnership would have positive
economic impact on the economy. While commending Galaxy for achieving
cost reduction in the execution of the exercise, Mr. Ahmed said the
agency has been diligent in utilizing cost saving mechanisms inherent
in the procurement processes. He expressed hope that the significant
price reduction will contribute to bringing the digital divide to the
benefit of dwellers in the rural areas and improve access in the
educational sector.