Kashifu Inuwa, director-general, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to enhancing digital transparency by creating websites for all 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Nigeria.
Inuwa made this pledge when he led NITDA’s management team on a courtesy visit to the headquarters of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in Abuja.
He explained that “the initiative would not only improve citizen engagement but also bolster Nigeria’s anti-corruption efforts by making local governments more visible, accountable, and closer to the people.”
“Majority of our local governments don’t have websites. So we are ready to support and provide a website for them to promote digital transparency.
“All local governments should have websites for that. They should be able to put what they are doing online and citizens also can contribute. I believe doing this will help also in improving the anti-corruption practises in Nigeria,” Inuwa said.
The NITDA chief further disclosed that the agency is introducing a licencing regime following a review of the IT clearance guidelines to standardise and improve government IT projects nationwide.
He said; “Recently, we reviewed the IT clearance guideline, and we are coming up with a licencing regime, because part of the challenge globally is that more than 93% of IT projects don’t meet their expectations.”
“From our data, since 2017 we have cleared more than 1,280 projects from 326 federal public institutions.
“This represents just about 28% of the federal public institutions. Many are not complying because we have more than 1,300 federal public institutions. Then also, we have IT projects valued at more than 3.4 trillion.
“So we believe by having this new guideline and having partnerships to strengthen our relationship with you, it will help us achieve a lot,” he stated.
In his response, Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu, chairman of ICPC, welcomed NITDA’s initiative and pledged his commission’s support in promoting digital transparency across government institutions.
He said; “One problematic area we want to address is this issue of digital transparency. We want the Local Government Councils to embrace this issue of allowing people to have access to information.
“Our people need to know what’s happening. They need information. And everywhere in this country people have access to more information.”
“You can go to websites to see what you are doing. Put your project there. Let us see your digital footprints.
“Let us see what you are doing. Because once you are not visible digitally as far as I’m concerned, there’s a problem. Because you don’t want us to know what you are doing,” Aliyu said.
The strategic partnership between NITDA and ICPC reflects a shared commitment to transparency, closing the information gap, reducing corruption risks, and promoting trust between government and citizens.
