Nigeria Govt Enterprise Architecture to drive Digital Transformation – DG NITDA

By Etuka Sunday

As Enterprise Architecture is being used as a standard tool for executing a digital transformation strategy, the National Information Technology Development Agency has implemented the Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture (NGEA) to set clear directions for Government digital transformation in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi at 12th ISACA Annual Conference where he delivered Keynote Address with the theme: “Accelerating Digital Transformation: The Nigerian Trends.
Abdullahi said NITDA implemented the Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture framework to drive short, medium, and long term digital transformational impact.

He added that the framework provides direction enabling other government parastatals to easily, quickly, and conveniently execute digital initiatives. It also reduces the complexity associated with digital transformation and accelerates adoption across the board.
“The framework we designed at NITDA is in line with the digital transformation foundation laid by President Muhammadu Buhari. In October 2019, the president renamed and expanded the mandate of our Ministry to cover Digital Economy, he said.
He further stated that, “In November the same year, 2019,the president unveiled National Digital Economy Policy for Digital Nigeria, and he directed my Minister Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, to implement the policy. On the same day, the president also directed all Federal Public Institutions to set up a Digital Transformation Technical Working Group and on 27th August this year, the Honourable Minister of communications and digital economy inaugurated the first set of 100 Federal Public Institutions’ digital transformation working group. The idea behind setting the technical working group is to consolidate on the achievements recorded under some of our initiatives such as the Nigeria e-Government Master Plan (NeGMP), Nigeria e-Government Interoperability Framework (Ne-GIF) and Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture (NGEA).”
According to him, the framework has two value propositions. Firstly to promote One Government digital service and secondly, to guarantees the autonomy of each Federal Public Institutions (FPIs) to make individual decisions around business processes, digital services, and applications.

Furthermore, the framework has seven layers, namely Business, Service, Data, Application, IT Infrastructure, Security, and Performance, which centered around people and processes. Each layer has high-level expectations for FPIs and as well as specifies best practices, standards, tools, reference models and recommendations that will help FPIs achieve their value propositions and meet citizens’ expectations for government digital services.
Abdullahi opined that with the current reality of COVID-19, digital transformation strategy focuses more on how to deliver digital service to Nigerians. Therefore, the strategy depends on existing capabilities as a country to achieve operational excellence in a digital economy.
“Having understood how important digital capabilities are in driving digital transformation, we have embarked on upskilling and reskilling Nigerians with appropriate knowledge and skills that the necessary building blocks for digital transformation. We have trained over 26,000 Nigerians this year alone on different digital skills to help them understand and embrace digital transformation.
“In addition to the capacity building, we have provided thousands of digital tools to Nigerians raging from artisan toolbox set, smart mobile devices, laptops to building Community training centers, IT hubs, Innovation, and incubation hubs and center of excellence for emerging technologies,” he added.