Abstract

Nigeria is a country that has always posed a paradox to the international community in terms of its level of development vis-a-vis its economic potential. This is also reflected in the low ranking index it gets in international surveys despite the effort to develop its infrastructure and human capital. Nigeria has the fastest growing and most lucrative telecommunications, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) market in Africa, yet in spite of this obvious and significant progress is still being ranked low in e-government provision to its citizen. This paper reviews the aim and methodology used by the ranking agencies, takes a survey of Nigeria’s performance in global e-government surveys, identifies areas of deficiencies which have contributed to the low e-service delivery in the country despite the success recorded in the country’s ICT and telecommunications sector and suggests how this situation may be improved.

Key words: E-government, information and communications technology, Nigeria.