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Cameroon, Nigeria’s eastern neigbour, is seeking to model application of digital platform to public services on the e-Government success story by Africa’s largest economy of over 200 million people.
A delegation from the Ministry of Public Service & Administration Reforms in Cameroun recently visited Nigeria to inspect the depth of the E-government implementation in 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 Nigeria has recorded so far.
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Galaxy Backbone, the digital infrastructure and shared services provider and an agency under the Federal Ministry of Communications & Digital Economy has been the focal agency implementing the e-government Masterplan for Nigeria. It was in this light that they paid a visit to the organization to inspect the infrastructure and get more knowledge on the Nigerian E-government level of implementation.
Professor Mohammad Bello Abubakar, Managing Director/CEO at GBB received the delegates led by the country’s Inspector General for the Cameroonian Ministry of Public Service & Administrative Reforms, Ms. Tabod Jacqueline Mejand at the Galaxy Backbone Corporate Headquarters. He expressed delight in the great work KOICA has been able to do in Nigeria and looks forward to the work they will be doing in helping the Cameroonian nation raise the level of e-government in their country.
According to Prof. Abubakar, ‘I am delighted that the Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reforms is taking this giant step towards actualizing e-Government in Cameroun 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 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. In his words; “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 datacentre. They were initially taken to the old datacentre before visiting the Uptime certified Tier III datacentre and Network Monitoring and Management Centre. The Cameroonian delegates 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 responding, Ms. Mejand, the head of the Cameroonian and KOICA delegation on this visit stated that Cameroun has a plan around e-government but lack the coordination and exposure hence this visit. She expressed her thanks to GBB for the warm reception and time taken to take them through. ‘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.”
Galaxy Backbone through its Chief Executive has promised the Cameroonian delegation that the organization will do all within its power to partner, advise and help train the Cameroonian people in the development of e-government in their country. GBB’s vision is “to become the leading enabler of digital inclusion in Africa”, hence they organization sees this as a path towards enabling digital services in other countries in Africa.
