Public Service Delivery in the Digital Age: Nigeria's E-Government Experience

Electronic governance is the application of information and communication technology initiatives in the provision of services by a governing agency to its citizens. This implementation of E-Governance in a country improves the overall efficacy of public service delivery, and governance, by facilitation a more efficient, transparent, cost effective and accountable system of government. The implementation of E-Government facilitates reduced cost of information management and sharing, it increases the portfolio of public services to citizens, facilitates the free flow of information between departments, agencies and layers within government, builds better relationships between government and the general public which in turn promotes transparency and accountability in government, and empowers the members of the country to participate more actively in their own governance. For these benefits, the level of implementation of E-Governance is seen as an indicator for the assessment of a country’s governance and the quality of its service delivery. The current study set out to investigate the impacts and level of implementation of E-Governance in Nigeria. Similar to most other African countries, the implementation of E-Governance in Nigeria, even though it was seen to be on the rise, still lags significantly behind the global average. This was seen to be a result of the many unresolved challenges to the proper implementation of E-Governance in the country, all of which has led to a reduced impact/benefits of EGovernance to the Nigerian populace. To combat these barriers to the implementation of E-Governance, this paper recommends that Nigeria increase efforts to fully adopt E-Governance in the Nigerian public sector, to realize and protect equitable provision of services to Nigerians.