The Federal Government has said it is exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in public service delivery as part of efforts to deepen digital transformation across ministries, departments and agencies.
The Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) Dr Dasuki Arabi, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday at the Stakeholders Engagement and Inauguration of the Inter-Ministerial Task Team for the seventh edition of the ranking of websites of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
Arabi said the government had moved beyond making public institutions paperless and was now focused on deploying emerging technologies, including AI, to improve service delivery.
“We are not looking at only paperless. We are looking at the adoption of the use of AI in delivering public service,” he said.
According to him, the website ranking initiative was introduced to make government more accessible to citizens, noting that websites remained one of the easiest channels through which Nigerians could obtain information and engage government.
He said the exercise was not intended to shame or disgrace any MDA but to ensure that government websites met common standards and provided citizens with useful and reliable information.
Arabi said MDAs were expected to publish information on their activities, leadership and services, while providing functional telephone numbers, email addresses and Freedom of Information portals.
He added that the initiative was being linked with the government’s e-government master plan to enable Nigerians to transact business with government agencies without necessarily travelling to their offices.
The BPSR boss said the percentage of MDAs with functional websites had increased from less than 30 per cent when the initiative began to more than 80 per cent.
He expressed optimism that all MDAs would have functional and compliant websites within the next one or two years.
Meanwhile, the Director, Govtech Africa, Mr Fortune Toma, said automation had been introduced into this year’s ranking process to improve transparency and reduce inconsistencies associated with manual assessments.
Toma said Govtech Africa had developed Atlas, a web-ranking engine designed to automatically assess government websites against established criteria.
He explained that unlike previous assessments, which were largely conducted manually and at a particular point in time, Atlas would monitor websites continuously over several weeks and record its findings.
“The underlying and most significant component of the ranking process this year that would ensure transparency is automation,” Toma said.
He added that human assessors would still be involved in areas requiring professional judgment. Toma said the criteria and methodology for the assessment would be published, while a live microsite would allow members of the public and the Inter-Ministerial Task Team to monitor the progress of the ranking.
He also called on MDAs to strengthen the cybersecurity of their websites, warning that increased digitisation would inevitably expose government infrastructure to cyber threats.
According to him, government institutions must take their Information Technology departments seriously, regularly audit their digital infrastructure and ensure compliance with cybersecurity standards.
He also urged international development partners and private-sector technology companies to support the government in protecting its growing digital infrastructure.
Stakeholders at the event included Galaxy Backbone, the National Information Technology Development Agency, the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Folarin Kehinde
Dieser Artikel ist neu veröffentlicht von / This article is republished from: Vanguard, 28.08.2026
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
