MDAs Operate 40,000 Email Addresses, To Stop Data Hosting Abroad

Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government in Nigeria now operates over 40,000 unique electronic mail (e-Mail) addresses. The Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone, Yusuf Kazaure, while interacting with journalists in Busan, South Korea, disclosed this, adding that the company is gradually entrenching technology culture among MDAs in the country.

Kazaure disclosed that under the direction of the Ministry of Communication, that all MDAs must have their unique email addresses, “we have been able to create over 40,000 email addresses for MDAs. The uptake has been that more MDAs are now using their unique email addresses to communicate online. So all MDAs now have the .gov.ng email address.

“The email addresses are for some level of civil servants. So the next step is to make it available to all level of civil servants,” Kazaure stated.He disclosed that Galaxy Backbone developed a single platform for government agencies, called the Onegov.ng platform, which connects all government MDAs.

He explained that it consists of two main elements, the first being that it ensures that every MDA is connected to the platform and secondly, it links to government data centre. Kazaure said each MDAs controls its own database, “but all the databases are hosted on a single platform, called the Onegov.ng. It helps to build a common layer of security and allows data exchange and sharing among MDAs. So the fact that all MDAs are on a single platform, makes it easier for agencies to share data.

“The platform will enhance transparency in governance. The platform is also certified along several security lines like the ISO certifications,” he stated.Kazaure revealed that its organisation was currently in the process of deploying government cloud for all MDAs, that will enable them to store their data securely in the cloud, without hosting their data abroad.

According to him, it is going to be a private cloud that will interface with other public clouds. Speaking on the need for the country to move at par with others in terms of technology adoption, Kasaure said the thing about technology is that it is evolving by the day and newer technologies are coming up daily.

According to him, it is either country embrace the new trend of technology or loses out. “If Nigeria does not make conscious efforts to align itself with the direction that technology is going, the county will be left behind. The truth is that most technology solutions have a lifespan and after their lifespan, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), will stop supporting the solution because it will become obsolete at that time.”

The Galaxy Backbone MD disclosed that percentage of utilisation of firm’s services by MDAs is ramping, even though it was slow initially, because of increased capacity.According to him, today, the demand for connectivity is higher and we expect the uptake on applications to also be higher, going forward.

“Today we no longer import digital content as it used to be because we are seeing the growth of local contents, thereby increasing the demand for Internet application. We expect to see more local traffic in Nigeria, as against the formal norm where data traffic is routed to counties like America before coming back to Nigeria. Today we desire to host our data locally and drive local traffic within Nigeria,” he stated.

 

 

Source: The Guardian