By John Ikani
The Federal Government of Nigeria has assured of its preparedness to partner, advise and help train the Government of Cameroon in the development of an e-government structure.
Chief Executive Officer, Galaxy Backbone, Prof Mohammad Bello Abubakar, gave the assurance when he received a delegation from the Ministry of Public Service and Administration Reforms of Cameroon at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja recently.
Galaxy Backbone is an agency under the Communications Ministry in charge of implementing the e-government masterplan for Nigeria.
The Cameroonian delegation had sought to replicate Nigeria’s e-government structure by adopting its strategies and getting the support of its partners after the delegation inspected the depth of the e-government implementation Nigeria developed and implemented with the assistance of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and tour the level of infrastructure invested in achieving the heights the nation has recorded so far.
Abubakar expressed delight in the great work KOICA has been able to do in Nigeria, adding that he looked forward to the work they will be doing in helping the Cameroonian nation raise the level of e-Government in their country.
“I am delighted that the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms is taking this giant step towards actualising e-government in Cameroon with the support of our friends and partners in KOICA. While I advise you to anticipate challenges along the way, there will be a lot of success you will record with this engagement,” he said.
“GBB’s vision is to become the leading enabler of digital inclusion in Africa, hence the organisation sees this as a path towards enabling digital services in other countries in Africa.”
He further admonished the delegation to try as much as possible to be firm in their resolve and continue to seek new ways of implementing e-government strategies in their country because of the huge benefits of e-government to any nation.
According to the Agency’s boss, “we all know the benefits of e-government platforms. We have already started seeing the benefits in Nigeria.”
The delegation visited the National Shared Services Centre (NSSC) which is managed by Galaxy Backbone and is home to GBB’s world class Tier III Data Centre. They were initially taken to the old Data Centre before visiting the Uptime certified Tier III Data Centre and Network Monitoring and Management Centre.
The Cameroonian delegates said they were very impressed at the level of investment and work the Nigerian government through Galaxy Backbone has put into ensuring that e-government in Nigeria is made a thing of the past.
In response, Ms Mejand, the head of the delegation stated that Cameroon has a plan around e-government but lacks coordination and exposure. This, according to her, necessitated the visit.
She expressed her thanks to GBB for the warm reception and time taken to take them through the facility.
“We want to thank you for the opportunity given to visit your infrastructure because we realise that for e-government to effectively take place in a country and go operational, we need infrastructure and the people to help train their decision makers to have interest in e-government,” she stated.
