Nigerian govt moves to adopt Blockchain technology for operation efficiency

The Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reform, Dr Dasuki Arabi, has said that the Federal Government will roll out a road map for the implementation of blockchain technology in Nigeria.

Arabi said the BPSR is also planning to train 500,000 public servants ahead of the adoption of the new technology.

This was disclosed on Wednesday at a workshop organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Abuja.

The two-day event was in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Service Reforms.

The development is coming amidst the Central Bank of Nigeria’s bid to stop the use of cryptocurrency in the official banking channel.

The CBN had in February 2021 banned banks from trading cryptocurrency and recently fined four banks over N800m for cryptocurrency-related transactions.

Blockchain is a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain.

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The DG said the technology (blockchain) is “real and has come to stay”, adding that the government needs to innovate.

“Public service is the biggest beneficiary of blockchain. When you look at the responsibilities that are saddled with the public service, you will see that there is a lot to benefit out of blockchain technology,” the DG said.

He admitted that the public service was underperforming due to lack of efficiency in operations.

He added, “We cannot meet our target, we cannot change the life of a citizen if we are not efficient. There is a National Government e-Masterplan that has been approved by the Federal Executive Council which has set the strategy for digitisation for this massive movement of paper government and public service to paperless by the year 2030. The framework has been set up; the implementation has already started.

“From next year, assessments will be done electronically of everybody that is on IPPIS and working for the Federal Government of Nigeria.

“As at the time this paper was being crafted and its strategy, little attention was paid to the blockchain. But as it is a legal document, we can always review it. Blockchain is definitely going to be very important in implementing the e-government master plan.

“We will come up with a robust road map for the implementation and adoption of blockchain technology in the public service in Nigeria. What we are trying to do is to sensitise Nigerians and public servants and we come up with the road map for the implementation of the blockchain technology.

“Adopting this technology will give us the privilege to improve on transparency and accountability, then working together between MDAs and most importantly it will break bureaucracy.”

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