The Head of the Civil Service (Hos)of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, has declared that computer literacy is now mandatory for all federal civil servants.
She stated this on Tuesday, 19 July 2022 while declaring open a one-day Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Solution Roundtable and Workshop organised for Directors of Reform Coordination and Service Improvement, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Procurement and Human Resource Management across all MDAs in the civil service.
She urged all MDAs to train their staff to be computer savvy, stressing that in the journey of digitalisation, capacity is critical and as such computer literacy is now mandatory for all federal civil servants.
“You are either on the digital train or you will be left at the train station, ” Yemi-Esan said.
She also mandated the Directors of Reform Coordination and Service Improvement to take full charge in driving the process to fruition in their various MDAs.
Yemi-Esan urged all the permanent secretaries to ensure that they are not left behind in the digitalisation process as the Office will very soon stop accepting hard copies from MDAs.
The HoS maintained that there was the need for effective coordination at the highest level of administration, reiterating that ECM deployment was being carried out in phases, therefore, urging MDAs to follow the laid down processes before rushing to procure software solutions.
Earlier in his Welcome Address, the Permanent Secretary, Service Policies and Strategies Office, Dr Emmanuel Meribole intimated to participants that ECM was one of the pillars of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021 – 2025 (FCSSIP25), which aimed at strengthening the Service to grapple with future challenges in the workplace.
According to him, the workshop was to deepen his understanding of the standards required for the seamless deployment of ECM solutions.
The workshop witnessed presentations from the Director ICT, OHCSF, Mr Dada, representative of the Director-General, NITDA, Dr Usman Abdullahi, the Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone (Nig.) Ltd, Prof Mohammed B. Abubakar and Chairman, Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede who spoke on the Benefits of Digitalisation: A Private Sector Perspective.
He expressed great optimism that the Nigerian civil service will be able to compete with its counterparts around the world, adding that it will only take the right attitude to implement ECM successfully.