President Muhammadu Buhari has said government officials are no longer allowed to use personal emails for work purposes.
While noting that “the National Policy on Nigeria Government Second-Level Domains is a welcome step in this direction,” he directed that all government officials should refrain from using private emails for official purposes and Federal Public institutions (FPIs) must migrate their websites to the relevant government domains.
According to a statement by the presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, the President made this declaration on Thursday at the State House in Abuja when he presented and introduced two new policies created by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
The President said that the nation’s economy has been most successfully diversified by the digital economy sector, saving the Federal Government more than N45.7 billion in IT project clearance costs.
The National Policy on the Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains and the National Data Policy, according to President Buhari, is essential to accelerating the growth of the country’s digital economy sector.
He also stated that this administration would continue to develop policies and programs to further the diversification of the economy.
President Buhari further stated: “In the last three and a half years, we have intensified the development of policies, design of programmes and implementation of projects in the digital economy sector and the impact has been very impressive.
“For example, we have succeeded in diversifying our economy to a large extent and this is obvious when we consider the contribution of the ICT sector to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2022 which stood at 18.44%, compared to the contribution of the oil sector to the GDP which was 6. 33% in the same period,” he said.
The President noted that Nigeria’s strides towards a thriving digital economy started on October 17, 2019 with the redesignation of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the restructuring of its mandate, stressing that the changes have been phenomenal.
“We are proud of the great strides of our digital economy sector and the impact it has had on the different sectors of our economy and I commend the Honourable Minister for being committed to the implementation of the digital economy mandate.
“As part of our commitment towards ensuring the sustainability of our gains in the digital economy sector, we have taken steps to institutionalise the process by developing relevant policies and strategies.”