The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has won the 2016 award for the best Ministry, Department and Agency (MDA) of Government that has deployed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in its operations.
The award was presented at the National Information Technology and Development Agency (NITDA)-NIHILENT 2016 eGovernance and Long Service Awards ceremony in Abuja on Thursday.
The event had the theme: “Leveraging on IT Innovation for Economic Diversification”.
Speaking, the Director-General of NITDA, Dr Ibrahim Pantami, said the event was part of the agency’s eNigeria project aimed at showing appreciation to its staff for their long service.
Pantami added that it was organised to motivate MDAs to deploy ICT in their operations as part of efforts to achieve e-governance in the country.
“The agency has already begun to assist various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government on what needs to be done to achieve the status.
“This event is thus to appreciate the MDAs that have started making strides in the adoption of e-governance,” he said.
The Minister of Communications, Barr. Abdur-Raheem Shittu, said Nigerians were beginning to wake up to the realities of the importance of ICT, especially in job creation.
Shittu called for the introduction of ICT as a course of study in all tertiary institutions in the country as it had become very important for graduates to be ICT compliant in today’s world.
“Whatever course you read in the University be it English language, Political Science, Chemistry and the rest you must be ICT compliant because we are in the digital age,” he said.
Brig.-Gen. Sule Kazaure, the Director-General of NYSC, said he was elated at the recognition of the efforts of the scheme in the deployment of ICT in its operations.
Kazaure said NYSC moved from analogue to digital method of operations more than four years ago, adding that the scheme had continued to make strides in the area.
“The registration of corps members is now fully done online; we also check the performance of various local governments through biometric analysis.
“The scheme is also able to monitor activities in various camps due to our deployment of ICT and many other areas we use ICT.
“We have been compliant with the e-governance adoption in Nigeria.
“There is room for improvement; we will keep pushing forward to ensure that we continue to improve and comply with e-governance to achieve an e-nigeria,” Kazaure added.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Sokoto State Government won the 2016 award for the best state government in ICT deployment, while the University of Lagos won the award for best public tertiary institution in ICT deployment.
The award for best Web presence was presented to Akwa Ibom state, just as Clean Foundation won the award for best NGO in ICT deployment and the 2016 award for best e-governance projects.
The 2016 award for e-governance start-up was presented to Micro Scale Embedded Limited.
NITDA also presented awards and laptops to 14 of its staffers who had served the agency for 10 years. (NAN)