E-Governance and E-Government: Rethinking Public Governance in Nigeria, within the Context of COVID-19

Abstract

There are increasing numbers of countries across the African continent that have adopted e-government projects. Besides, these efforts have been driven by developed countries like the United States of America, Britain, China, France, Germany among others. However, despite the benefits accrue from the e-government project such as expansion in mobile telephony in a country like Nigeria, Nigeria's lack of infrastructure and functional literacy have impeded the growth of e-government. This study seeks to assess the efficacies of using e-governance in the contemporary era of covid-19 in Nigeria. This study argues that e-governance remains critical to the effective delivery of the Nigerian government owing to the dangers posed by the covid-19 pandemic especially as the government has considered social distancing as one of the options of curtailing the spread of coronavirus. Thus, the use of ICT by the government to access the large population of Nigerian within the shortest possible time when compared to the use of paper works. Thus, this study argues that if the Nigerian government would want to make significant progress in a bid to achieve the social distancing, it must channel it all its resources towards digitizing its operations with the citizens in line with global best practices.