Interrogating the Citizen-Centered Services and Development in Nigeria's Agricultural Sector Through E-Governance

摘要

The provision of citizen-centered services and development are critical indices in the measurement of performance of every government. In this era of Information Communication Technology (ICT), government businesses can be conducted through the electronic governance (EGOV) platform. E-governance involves the development, deployment and enforcement of the policies, laws and regulations necessary to support the functioning of a knowledge society as well as the transformation of internal and external public sector relationship throughudICT in order to optimize government service delivery and citizen participations. Nigeria is being threatened by internal insecurity because of preponderance of its citizens who engage in vices like thuggery, insurgency, kidnapping, robbery, drug addiction due to lack of access to government services such as information, capital to start and grow businesses, amongst other essential needs for development. Also, corruption at the forefront of government hinders the transfer of funds from government to the citizen. Based on this premise, the Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture in 2012 adopted the use of ICT through the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme in releasing funds to local famers thereby cutting unnecessary bureaucracy and corruption that hindered the growth of the Agriculture sector in Nigeria. This study utilizes secondary data for the method of analyses by reviewing extant literature on the e-wallet scheme implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture in Nigeria, and in addition analyzed the extent to which the E-wallet scheme delivered citizen-centered services for national development in Nigeria. The findings show that e-governance enhanced the delivery of citizen-centered services and national development. Based on these findings, non-participatory government ministries are advised to take advantage of citizen-centered EGOV platforms to empower the nation.