Digital transformation is not buying software — why Nigeria’s public digital systems must move from portals and promises to reliable service delivery

Not long ago, I had to change my phone and, along the line, I lost my physical SIM card for one of the Telcos. I needed to do a SIM swap, but it had to be an e-SIM. That should have been a simple service request: verify my identity, activate the e-SIM, and allow me to move on with my life.

It did not happen that way.

At the service centre, the first problem I encountered was the lack of stock of e-SIMs.  I had to repeat my visits over a period of 6 months or more.  When eSIMs were finally available, I was told that the identity confirmation portal required for the process was unavailable. I visited the store several times over a period of another 9 months.  In fact, I had fears that my number would have been churned. Eventually, when the service became available, I was informed that my records had somehow become corrupted, and my identity records had been suspended.  Fantastic!!  Our processes will show you shege banza!!! The solution was not digital. I had to physically visit their regional head office, repeat my registration, recapture my biometrics, and then wait for an uncertain number of days for the database to sync and have my records updated.

While that experience was frustrating, it was not a unique or unusual scenario. Many Nigerians have their own version of the same story. It may be a bank verification issue, a NIN link problem, a passport application, a driver’s licence renewal, a tax portal, a business registration process, or a government payment platform. At some point, the familiar explanation arrives: “There is no network.”

The Mystery called “Network.”

In Nigeria, “network” has almost become a notorious character in our national drama. It appears and disappears at will. It works for some people and fails for others. It is blamed for delays, missing records, failed verification, payment errors, and incomplete applications. Yet nobody can properly explain what it is, who owns it, who is responsible for it, or why it is always unavailable when citizens need it most.

Of course, the real issue is not always network in the narrow technical sense. In many cases, “network” is the convenient name we give to deeper problems: fragmented databases, weak process design, poor integration, unreliable infrastructure, poor change management, questionable procurement practices, and the absence of clear accountability.  It has become a euphemism for “Service Failure.”

Nigeria is not short of brilliant technology professionals. We have data engineers, software developers, system architects, project managers, cybersecurity experts, and digital entrepreneurs who can compete anywhere in the world. The problem is that many of our public and essential service systems are not designed with citizens in mind. They are designed around departments, vendors, approvals, revenue collection, and institutional convenience.

When systems do not speak to one another

Nigeria now has several major identity and verification databases. The Bank Verification Number, the National Identification Number, passport records, driver’s licence records, voter registration records, telecom subscriber records (SIM Registration), tax records, and other databases all hold important pieces of a citizen’s identity. In theory, these systems should interoperate with one another. In practice, they often behave like separate islands, processes, or data silos.

This is where many citizens experience the pain of digital transformation that has not been properly thought through. A person may have registered before, submitted biometrics before, uploaded documents before, and verified an identity before, yet another agency or company still asks for the same information all over again. When the systems fail to connect, the burden is pushed back to the citizen.

A well-designed digital public infrastructure should reduce repetition. It should allow secure identity verification, responsible data exchange, transparent service tracking, reliable payment processing, and clear feedback channels. It should help institutions serve citizens better, not force citizens to keep proving that they exist.

Buying Software is not Transformation

This is why we must be careful with the phrase “digital transformation.” Too often, it is treated as if it simply means buying software, scanning documents to an Enterprise Content Management system, launching a portal, procuring hardware, or announcing a new platform. But technology, by itself, does not transform anything. If the underlying process is confused and poorly designed, technology only makes the confusion faster and more visible.

A bad manual process does not become efficient simply because it is placed online. A poorly governed database does not become trustworthy because it has a modern interface. A broken service culture does not improve because citizens are asked to upload documents instead of submitting photocopies. Digital transformation begins with clarity about the service, the user, the process, the data, the responsibility, and the outcome.

Before any agency buys or builds another platform, it should ask a simple question: What problem are we actually trying to solve for the citizen? If that question is not answered honestly, the result will be another expensive system that works well during launch demonstrations but fails in real life.

They must also not ignore the risks inherent in going digital. A digital service that assumes every citizen has a smartphone, stable internet, or strong digital literacy will exclude many people. The divide is real. A poorly secured platform can expose citizens to fraud, identity theft, and privacy abuse. A badly negotiated technology contract can also trap the government in vendor lock-in, where only one supplier can maintain or modify the system. I already see this risk potential in the recently signed MOU between CBN and NCC on the Telecoms Identity Risk Management System (TIRMS), going by the Framework direction.  Perhaps most importantly, if a broken manual process is simply moved online without redesign, technology will only digitize frustration.

What government agencies must get right

First, every agency must map its services clearly. It should know what it provides, who uses each service, what documents are required, how long each step should take, where delays occur, and which steps can be removed completely. Without this discipline, agencies simply turn physical queues into digital queues.

Second, agencies must govern data properly. They must know what information they hold, who owns it, who can access it, how it is protected, how errors are corrected, and how citizens can seek redress when records are wrong. Data is not just a technical asset. It affects people’s ability to access essential services.

Third, systems must be interoperable. Identity, tax, immigration, banking, telecoms, business registration, health, education, and social welfare platforms should not operate as isolated islands. They should exchange only the necessary information, securely and lawfully, so citizens are not forced to repeat the same verification process endlessly.

Fourth, platforms must be reliable. A public portal that works only sometimes is not a service. Agencies should set uptime targets, monitor performance, communicate outages clearly, and treat downtime as a service failure rather than a normal Nigerian inconvenience.

Fifth, digital services must be accessible. They should work on mobile phones, use clear language, support people with disabilities, and consider citizens with limited digital literacy or poor internet access. A system that excludes large numbers of people has failed, regardless of how modern it looks.

Sixth, major public systems should be independently audited. The audit should examine security, performance, procurement value, data protection, user experience, accessibility, and whether the system is actually solving the problem it was designed to solve.

Seventh, agencies should publish simple performance dashboards. Citizens should be able to see how many applications were received, how many were processed, average processing time, service backlogs, complaints resolved, uptime levels, and other basic measures of performance. Public visibility changes institutional behaviour.

The real measure of transformation

The real measure of digital transformation is not the number of portals launched or contracts awarded. It is whether citizens can complete essential services faster, with less confusion, fewer visits, fewer unofficial payments, and greater confidence in the system.

So, what should a serious agency be able to show? It should show a clear list of services. It should show the data it collects and why. It should show that its systems can connect securely with other relevant systems. It should show that its platforms are reliable and monitored. It should show that citizens with different levels of ability and access can use the service. It should show that the system has been independently tested. And it should show the public, through dashboards, whether performance is improving or getting worse.

Those are not impossible standards. They are the basic expectations of a country that wants technology to improve public service rather than merely decorate it.

Nigeria does not need more portals that frustrate citizens. We need systems that work, institutions that take responsibility, and technology that makes public service genuinely easier. That is the transformation worth pursuing!!