Electronic Government: An investigation of factors facilitating and impeding the development of e-government in Nigeria

Abstract

This research work focused on investigating factors impeding and promoting E-government development in Lagos State of Nigeria through the lens of the government’s e-Service initiates. Empirical evidence in this work suggest that E-government maturity in governmental Ministries in Lagos State are at mixed stages of development, ranging from ‘emerging’ to ‘transactional’ with reference to the United Nation’s E-government benchmarks on frameworks used in assessing developmental stages of E-government. Major factors found to impede E-government development in Lagos State Government Ministries are issues of inadequate E-government infrastructure and E-readiness issues, lack of technically skilled workforce, issues related to funding, inadequate political will to develop and support electronic forms of government initiatives, and resistance to organisational transformation and change. Major factors found to facilitate electronic government development in Lagos State Government Ministries are issues related to reduction in corrupt practises in public-sector organisations, encouragement of accountability and transparency in public-sector organisations, and reduction in overall cost of running public-sector organisations. The findings highlighted above can generalise across other regions in Nigeria and are consistent with literature on E-government development and implementation in emerging economies around the world. The research work was conducted according to the mixed-method research tradition. Using an exploratory sequential research design that uses both the qualitative and quantitative strands of enquiry, the researcher was able to investigate various factors impacting E-government development in Lagos State which can generalise to other regions across Nigeria. The E-government research framework is underpinned by relevant E-government theories, frameworks, maturity models and interrelated concepts of Network and cross-agency collaboration processes. Research participants used in this work are drawn mainly from selected Ministries of the Lagos State government in Nigeria. The techniques for collecting the research data included document reviews, research visits and interviews, and the use of survey questionnaire. Finally, the study revealed that Lagos State Government Ministries exist in silos, with non-existent cross-agency collaboration and Networking among governmental organisations.