Digital Governance in Nigeria: Going Beyond the Hype - The Ekiti StateDigital Media Case Study & Lessons for the Public Sector by 'Kayode Fayemi, PhD.

1. 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.

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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.

9. • 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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.