Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
The federal government has revealed that it spent a total of N152 billion on digitisation in 2021.
The minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Ali Pantami, disclosed this yesterday at the closing of the 2021 service-wide capacity building programme on e-Government at the e-Government Training Centre, Abuja. According to the minister, the figure represents a quantum leap from the N9 billion spent in 2019 and 2020.
Meanwhile, the minister has given assurances that the federal government would migrate to a paperless government by 2030. The amount constitutes the total sum approved by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Immigration and Customs among other agencies of government for the 2021 fiscal year.
He said all the necessary measures had been put in place to achieve the objective by 2030 through the National Policy on Digital Nigeria. He said the capacity building programme for civil servants is part of the federal government’s e-Government Master Plan aimed at digitising every government process in all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). The training is a train-the-trainer programme targeted at selected civil servants who in turn are expected to go back to train their counterparts in their various organisations.
In another development, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has given assurance that its servers were not breached but are fully optimised at the highest international security levels as the custodian of the most important national database for Nigeria.
Making this declaration in his new year message yesterday, the director-general of NIMC, Engr. Aliyu Aziz, said as the custodian of the foundational identity database for Africa’s most populous nation, NIMC has gone to great lengths to ensure the nation’s database is adequately secured and protected, especially given the spate of cyber-attacks on networks across the world.
“Over the years, through painstaking efforts, NIMC has built a robust and credible system for Nigeria’s identity database. The Commission and its infrastructure are certified to the ISO, 27001:2013 Information Security Management System Standard which is revalidated annually.
“NIMC has ensured maximum security of its systems and database because of the critical nature of the identity data which the Commission collects, manages and maintains as critical assets for the country,” the statement said.
The Commission assured the public that it would continue to uphold the highest ethical standards in data security on behalf of the federal government and ensure compliance with data protection and privacy regulations.
The NIMC director-general stated that the Commission did not use nor store information on the AWS cloud platform or any public cloud despite the usefulness of the NIMC Mobile App available to the public for accessing their NIN on the go.
The NIMC boss further stated that the NIMC MobileID application had no database within the app, nor does it store information in flat files. The Commission has made this app available to the public to reduce and eliminate any delay or challenge(s) in accessing their NINs.
He said that the public should be aware that the possession of a NIN slip does not amount to access to the National Identity Database, but that the NIN slip is just a physical assertion of a person’s identity.
“Under the data protection regulations, no licensed partner/vendor is authorised to scan and store copies of individual’s NIN slips but rather authenticate the NIN using the approved and authorised verification platforms/channels provided.
“As part of its policies to protect personally identifiable information stored in the National Identity Database, the public may recall that the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy through NIMC launched the Tokenisation features of the NIN verification service. This solution is to safeguard the personal data of individuals and ensure continuous user rights and privacy,” the statement said.
In compliance with the mandatory use of NIN for government services, the Commission also hailed the concerted efforts of several federal government agencies such as the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Nigeria Immigration Services, Pension Commission (PenCom), the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigeria Correctional Service, the Nigeria Customs, and a host of others, which had streamlined their services in line with the use of National Identification Number (NIN) as the valid means of identification.
Engr Aziz also appealed to all stakeholders to embrace the identity database project, enroll and receive their NINs, adding that the federal government’s efforts in providing security and economic solace for all Nigerians will be enhanced when the entire population is enrolled into the national identity database.
(leadership.ng)
