Digital Governance in Nigeria: Going Beyond the Hype - The Ekiti State

Digital Media Case Study & Lessons for the Public Sector

by

‘Kayode Fayemi, PhD.

Contexts

A Brave New World

With the massive deployment of ICT infrastructure across great swathes of the world, we are

gradually moving towards the apotheosis of an age which has been famously described as an

‘Information Society’ or a ‘Post-Industrial Society’, which is defined by increasing openness,

interaction, and the popular production and dissemination of knowledge. This is a world in which

the traditional ways and channels of generating and passing information are being re-defined and

extended by no less a phenomenon than what we have all come to regard as ‘New Media’.

I was born and socialised in an age in which hard and paper-bound books, newspapers,

magazines were the essential media of accessing information and acquiring knowledge, though

the electronic channels of radio and television occurred fairly in tandem with these, hence the

great social changes of the 1960s to the 80s – be they political, economic or scientific – came

through at a pace that was considered quite radical by the standards of those period. Yet, one

never lost sight of the fact that the communication then was largely one-sided, top-bottom, and

between the producers and those of us who were ‘consumers’. These in their own manner threw

up all sorts of ideological complexes that guided or shaped the nature of what we thought we

knew. And certainly, there were those time-gaps and lapses between when the information was

produced, disseminated and when we could access it.

However, starting with the great cyber-revolutions of the late 1980s down to the early days of the

millennium, we have now found ourselves at the frontiers of a very brave new world– a world in

which technologies have advanced media, and information and knowledge are produced,

disseminated and accessed almost with breath-taking urgency and pace. We hardly go looking

for information these days, it seeks us out, particularly through wireless digital equipment, such

as tablet computers, mobile phones, miniature electronic devices etc which have remodelled the

way we communicate and our response patterns, once we are stitched into the interstices of the

digital world. More so, not only has information been fundamentally democratised, its

reproduction has become fully interactive and endlessly plural. As such, we have been edged into

that centrifuge of history in which not only ‘Big Men’ make history, but history has become an

interplay and interaction of a wide-ranging gamut of actors who can access information and

respond on these bases, almost real time, as the great events of our times are enacted.

The foregoing makes it possible to agree with Sonia Livingstone that, “landscapes containing

new media are busy, contested, peopled landscapes, drawing new media into the contestation of

the major contours, the navigable paths and the beneficial and harmful directions to be

taken.”The trope of being ‘beneficial’ is brought into bolder relief when the economic and

commercial purposes of the deployment of New Media are considered.

In essence, New Media relates to a set of information propagation channels that the technology

industry has spawned from the close of the 20th Century to create a ‘volatile’ digital culture that

is at once liberating and equally capable of spinning out of control if not properly regulated. It

offers access to information anywhere and at any time on compliant digital devices; it guarantees

interactive user feedback and the possibility of creating virtual communities around particular

content. Instances of New Media consist of the Internet, websites, computer multimedia, DVDs,

video games, CD-ROMs, and e-commerce, etc.

With the emergence of New Media, there has been an unprecedented rise of digital and

universally connected information flowing through the backbone of the Internet infrastructure

and communications technology, which remarkably interfaces and integrates the traditional

audio, video and electronic text modes, and is made available via channels and tools such as

websites, blogs, webcasts and webinars, podcasts, social networking sites, RSS Feeds, QR

Codes, eCards, virtual worlds, video games, etc. This has greater significance in the radical

manner in which it has altered the notion of geographical distance by bridging far-flung spaces

and allowing for huge volumes of information to be transmitted and accessed at speeds that were

erstwhile unimaginable. To many New Media pundits, this singular fact signposts a re-

conceptualisation of ‘globalisation’, not only in the “death of distance”, but equally in the

creation of virtual communities across interest groups located at the farthest and nearer reaches

of our world. Saliently, while this also redefines how we now perceive what is considered as the

“public sphere”, its revolutionary potential is unleashed in its great capacity for and support of

user-generated content (as in the instance of what has come to be known as ‘citizen journalism’),

which immensely transforms entrenched relationships of power involved in who is in control of

information.

Complementing its capability as tools for enhancing the interflow of communication across

numerous actors, which can spark up swift social change, New Media provides platforms that

have come to revise the way in which we live and do business, such as through e-commerce, e-

publishing, e-government, e-learning, e-voting, etc, and will certainly continue to serve as a key

driver of employment, opportunities, and economic growth in our present reality. It will open up

hitherto unknown and new markets, and expand old ones, for our entrepreneurs, and create pools

of information for those seeking more efficient ways of going about their business. Channels

such as interactive websites and online kiosks are becoming more important in this regard.

Whether as a commercial, political or government actor, the essential feedback mechanism that

New Media affords can be seen as a critical factor in ensuring that a participatory process is

enshrined, across constituencies, in how service is delivered and more value is created in society.

The Rise and Rise of Social Media

An integral aspect of New Media is the phenomena of Social Media, which are web and mobile

based technologies through which people network and share information on the internet. It

supports some of the largest virtual communities on the globe, and has its hallmark as being

significantly defined by user generated content, even though many governments, corporations,

and businesses are increasingly harnessing the vast potential of these media in reaching out to

people to propagate their ‘more structured and official’ messages.

Social Media encompasses technologies comprising micro-blogging, podcasts, photo and video-

sharing sites, weblogs, internet forums, social bookmarking, etc and the power of these platforms

cannot be under-emphasised by virtue of the statistics that they command, as about half of the

world’s population has converged on them. In terms of the bigger social media players, it is

reputed that while Facebook has over 1 billion users and about 845 million of them are active,

Twitter has over 465 million accounts and is growing at a rate of 11 accounts every second,

whilst YouTube witnesses over 1 billion video views in a day. Also, Facebook records more than

1 billion posts per day – with each post having a lifespan of about 3 hours – and over 250 million

photos being uploaded each day, whereas Twitter users engage in about 175 million tweets in a

day, and one hour of video is uploaded on YouTube every second, accounting for about 60

hoursof video every minute, and 9 months (24 hours a day multiplied by thirty days, and then by

9 months) in every hour.

Further to these mind-boggling figures, 4 out of every 5 internet users are said to visit social

media sites, and there are over 2.8 billion social media profiles online (representing almost half

of the world’s internet users), 70 million WordPress blogs, and 39 million Tumblr blogs. More

so, these figures are considered to be growing, with about 59% of internet users exhibiting some

active online social media behaviour. In addition, in terms of the commercial and business

usages of social media, it is claimed that whilst 75% of companies now utilise Twitter as a

marketing handle for their products and services, and that1 in 3 of small businesses engage social

media in their marketing endeavours, 36% of social media users are said to post advertising

related

content online, and a growing number of people make purchasing judgements on the basis of

social media influence.

Particularly, with regard to Nigeria, it is claimed by researchers that the more popular social

media use by our country folk relates to Facebook, which currently has over 4 million Nigerian

subscribers, making us the 38th most populated country on the networking site. And, this is said

to mark a penetration of 2.72% in relation to our demography, and 9.4% of the total number of

internet users. 68% of these users are claimed to be male and 32% female, with the greater

percentage of this demography belonging to Nigerians within the age bracket of 18 and 34.

What becomes very clear from the foregoing is the awareness that social media have become

increasingly vital tools of convergence for people across the world and a rallying point for

purposes of sharing information – whether for marketing or social action, as such it is a veritable

tool for engaging with governments, governance and public institutions. One need not look too

far to see how much its use and impact has weighed in on community organisation and

mobilisation, and the demand for more accountable and open governments as it happened

between June 2009 and February 2012 in the interconnected series of upheavals, described as the

‘Arab Uprising’ or the ‘Arab Spring’, spanning Iran, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Egypt and Yemen,

etc. With the instance of Iran, the tools of social media served as powerful agents of change that

were deployed in ways in which traditional media were incapable of, and at the vortex of the

crisis, Twitter was utilised in a way that was difficult to censor as organisers and citizens used it

to mobilise each other and send out daily reports to the outside world about happenings within

the country. It was estimated that over 221,000 tweets were exchanged within hours, 3,000

videos uploaded on YouTube and 2.2 million blog entries posted online. This was instructive on

the capacity of technology and social media to empower people in their determination to

mobilise for change within repressive contexts through innovative social evidence tools and

platforms; and it was equally inspiring that this remarkably influenced Twitter’s nomination for

the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hence, in Ekiti, where I am Governor, our administration is deeply committed to running a very

open and accountable government, which is why we take the issue of e-governance with all

seriousness. By creating the e-portal (www.ekitistate.gov.ng), we have laid the foundations for

promoting an active interface with our people, through which they can access regular and

accurate information on our activities and seek clarification and ask questions on the processes of

government, in manners that buttress the milieu of openness that we have instituted through the

passing of the Freedom of Information legislation. It is important to add that we have also a

variety of digital channels, which encompass almost all the common social networking platforms

including Twitter, Facebook, App for Nokia, iPhone, BB and android.

Nigeria’s Digital Landscape

Over the past decade, Nigeria’s Internet sector has been growing in leaps and bounds, and the

digital landscape has fundamentally evolved from a previously faltering fixed-line infrastructure,

with the rise of newer Internet Service Providers who are deploying cutting edge and ground-

breaking technologies, and the surge in the number of data carriers, internet exchanges and

gateway operators now operative within the country. Coupled with this is the significance of the

incredible number of subscribers highlighting the super-growth of the fixed wireless and mobile

operators in Nigeria(put at over 90 million), a large chunk of which constitute the very dense

demography populating the country’s social media and digital landscape.

In terms of very recent estimates, Nigeria is ranked as having the largest number of Internet users

in Africa, with over 43 million people maintaining online presence, representing a 29%

penetration in relation to the Nigerian population (taken as above 155 million people), and 32.2%

of the total number of internet users on the continent. As such, Nigeria has witnessed a

phenomenal growth in online activities in the past 12 years – from say, December 2000 when it

had only 200,000 internet users – to out-leap other countries on the continent having higher

GDPs and GNPs than it does, like Egypt (which has over 17 million users), South Africa (5

million), Morocco (10.4million), Algeria (4.7million), etc.In the absence of coherent data, I do

not believe that it will be inaccurate to say that a great percentage of these users in Nigeria

are new media users in one form or the other – whether passive or active. This forms part of the

backdrop upon which some of us as government actors and change agents have been leveraging

to build a critical mass of people for social transformation – either towards electoral vigilance or

other community based actions.

Global Tools and Local Actors

Ekiti State’s Digital (R)evolution

In executing the vision that had driven my quest for public office – which was to position Ekiti

within a global framework and transform it into an economic hub and destination of choice for

business and fun seekers – my administration embarked upon the development and

implementation of a robust digital media strategy that commenced in 2011.And, I

personallyoversaw the putting together of an execution-minded home-grown team that could

translate our 8-Point Agenda into the digital ecosystem. The team’s mandate, beyond creating a

digital media blueprint, was to ensure that our venture into the digital landscape was sustainable

and continuously added value to our programmes and activities in Ekiti. Indeed, we wanted to

move beyond the hype that appears to define a number of attempts within the terrain and create

something truly meaningful.

Sustainability for us meant that we needed to have our own team within the government take

ownership of our digital media investments and become drivers of its processes. Hence, we

created a Digital Media unit within my office, which is headed by a Senior Technical Assistant

on Digital Media. And subsequently, a series of capacity building trainings were held for my

aides, members of the State Executive Council, as well as the Digital Media unit to ensure that

we had the right mix of support to buoy the digital transformation that we were heralding.

The main objectives of our digital transformation programme include:

• Providing real-time or as near real-time as much as possible authentic, believable and

credible evidence of our service to our people;

• Creating and institutionalizing effective engagement with Ekiti stakeholders across the

world;

• Promoting participatory democracy, inclusive governance and accountability in Ekiti

State;

• Making Ekiti State one of the top 3 leading public digital brands in Nigeria by June 2012.

I can certainly say, without any fear of contradiction, that Ekiti State has presently become one

of the leading digital brands in Nigeria. Yet, it is worthy of a brief detour to give a situational

analysis of how Ekiti fared within the digital landscape prior to our intervention in 2011. Before

then:

• We had only 3 digital channels – the earlier manifestations of the website

(www.ekitistate.gov.ng), the Facebook and Twitter pages. The website was poorly

interactive with a heavy focus on press releases, and the lack of a clear engagement

strategy in relation to our social media pages. The management of these pages was ad

hoc, while the channels were more of complaints warehouses. It was not surprising that

our website was moribund in terms of web traffic, and was not one of the 3,000 most

visited websites in Nigeria at the time.

• There was the paucity of multimedia content on our digital channels. There was little

evidence of what we were doing in Government on these channels, as the emphasis of

content generation was for the traditional media. Digital media was almost always an

after-thought, with the corresponding poor alignment and integration of our traditional

and digital channels.

• There was no expert ownership of and accountability for our digital channels. We had

only a web master.

• There were no performance measures put in place to ensure that we had commensurate

return on investments (ROI).

Hence, it was clear to me that if we must succeed in carrying our message through to the

generality of Ekiti people and stakeholders in a digital and globalised world, we had to set new

ground rules. First, it was not about “presence” but “effectiveness”. We were more interested in

ensuring that our digital media channels met the objectives that we set out to achieve. Second,

we worked on the various processes needed to make our digital endeavoura win-win proposition.

Third, I took on the role of being the Project Manager, and the head of the digital team was

submitting weekly progress reports to me.

What Did We Do?

In terms of channels, we recognised that the website (www.ekitistate.gov.ng) remains the ‘shop

front’ of the state and its digital hub, and as such we embarked on reinventing it by creating a

state-of-the-art, multimedia, fully interactive, search-engine friendly and intuitive website. We

also created a mobile version of the website (the first for any public institution in Nigeria), a

more interactive Facebook page, a branded YouTube channel, a Slideshare account (for official

state documents – another first for a state government in Nigeria), a Flickr account (for official

photos – also the first for a state government in the country), an email newsletter (through which

we send out weekly updates to those signed up to the newsletter), and mobile applications

(equally the first by any state government in Nigeria). The integration of all these channels has

continued to receive critical acclaim both within and outside the country. On February 29th

2012, we formally launched the new digital channels, and within 3 weeks of launching these

channels, the state website became the most visited state government website in Nigeria, as well

as one of the top 300 most visited websites in Nigeria. For a website that 3 months earlier

ranked outside the top 3,000 websites in the country, that was no mean feat.

On the level of content, we understood that the currency of attention across digital channels is in

having content that is authentic, believable and credible. We anchored our communication

around our 8-point agenda, and working through the archives of videos, photos and documents

that we held, we curated and uploaded hundreds of photos, videos and documents. Today, there

are almost a thousand photos on the state’s Flickr account, about 180 videos on the state’s

YouTube channel and over 160 documents on Slideshare (which is a continuously growing

archive). In just 9 weeks, the photos on Flickr have been viewed over 53,000 times while the

documents on Slideshare have been viewed over 23,000 times. Each one of the 8-point agenda

has videos, photos and documents that show clearly what has been done and is being done across

the State.Ekiti State’s digital channels have, unarguably, one of the biggest content banks within

the public sector in Nigeria. Quite significantly, I believe, our website www.ekitistate.gov.ng has

witnessed 101,788 page views, an average visit duration of 5 minutes and 43 seconds, and

50.82% of Returning Visitors between 29th February 2012 when it was launched and 10th May

2012, which was just a few days ago. These analytics reveal the growing attention that our

programmes and activities are receiving, not only within Nigeria, but also abroad.

Yet, we have faced some challenges in curating content from our MDAs in the State. Due to the

way the civil service is structured, the Press or Information Officers of the various MDAs are

responsible for the content generation around the activities of the MDAs and Bureaux. Since not

all of these officers are computer literate, especially in the usage of new media, we have been

equipping them with laptops, digital cameras, Internet access and knowledge on managing digital

media. The State’s Digital Media unit is having ongoing engagements with the heads of these

bodies in order to ensure that the projects, programmes, initiatives of each of the MDAs are well

represented across the state’s digital channels. We operate from the premise that governance

must never be essentially about the Governor or the activities of his office, but a cross-cutting

collaboration and synergy among all the strands and organs of administration in the State. It is

about a team at work. We are determined to shine the spotlight on every MDA across our digital

channels.

Civic Engagement

Many critical government documents such as the Roadmap are now in web-based formats. After

we launched our new digital channels in February, there were increasing calls for transparency in

our administration across social media platforms, and we responded swiftly by uploading the

2012 budget. Ekiti became the first State to have its full budget online. More so, as a

demonstration of the creed of openness that we have proclaimed over and again, and which we

are absolutely committed to, our administration is ensuring that all contracts being vetted by the

government are continuously uploaded on the State’s website. We are presently working on

creating a tender’s portal on www.ekitistate.gov.ng that will be a real-time searchable archive for

past, present and future government procurement tenders.

Further to the foregoing, all the bills that have been passed into law in the State are already on

the website. And, in order to remove red tapes and allow real-time public access to my

administration, we have published the official email addresses and mobile phone numbers of all

the members of the state executive council on www.ekitistate.gov.ng. This includes my contact

details, those of the Deputy Governor, the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and the

Head of Service (HOS), etc. Also on the page on which these details are, you can click on a

“send a message” link that opens up a form which when completed and submitted goes

immediately to the email address and telephone number of the particular official selected. In my

view, governance is all about responsiveness to one’s constituencies, and one cannot respond if

one is inaccessible. With the fact that all my staff and aides have been equipped with fixed and

mobile internet data and voice complaint devices, we are primed to be at the service of Ekiti

people at all times. As at today, we have received hundreds of feedbacks that have helped us

manage the affairs of the State better. This is one of the clear advantages that Digital Media

offers.

What is Next for Us?

Transformation is a process. Though we have made a credible start, we are continuously striving

along the lines of good governance. One of the key areas we keep looking at is in ensuring that

we carry all stakeholders along, be it the market woman in a small village in Ekiti or the

investment banker in Canada. Ekiti is the Land of Honour, hard-work and Integrity, and we are

focussed on positioning it as the “Bangalore” of West Africa, even if some people consider this a

lofty aspiration. Our digital transformation agenda is only a part of the overall ICT deepening

programme that is ongoing in Ekiti State. One of our main aims is to grow the state as an

investment and tourism hub in Nigeria, and our digital media successes are definitely changing

the game in our favour.

In concluding, New Media tools can be key drivers of good governance if the following

conditions exist: (1) the Leadership and Support of the Executive all through the process; (2) the

presence of the right team on the team; (3) the alignment of the Digital Strategy with the key

goals and objectives of governance; (4) the existence of effective stakeholder engagement; (5)

the alignment with traditional media. I would end with a quote by Ien Chengdu that, "the choice

is not between disrupting your business now versus later, but between disrupting it yourself or

having it disrupted for you". At Ekiti State, we have ‘disrupted’ governance through the use of

digital media and our citizens are better for it. This is an evolving story of how embracing the

tools of innovation and ‘disruption’ are enhancing the quality of governance that is available to a

people. Ekiti has clearly shown that with the right approach, digital leadership within the public

sector is possible. Public institutions must rise up to this challenge. The game has changed.