Abstract
Cyberspace is now critical to every nation’s socio-economic, cultural and political activities. When it is disrupted or fails, a country may experience strong adverse effects. On the contrary, its correct functioning and pliability is transforming modern society with exceptional pecuniary and social benefits. With many activities increasingly moving to the Internet, cyberspace has become a new stage for innovations, enterprises, social networking, criminality and war. This paper presents a brief overview of a study on Nigeria’s presence in cyberspace. The Internet penetration growth and evolving Internet infrastructure provisioning in Nigeria were examined and a critical assessment of Nigerian presence in cyberspace was carried out between the months of August and September 2015, using the United Nations online presence index methodology. Web content, interactivity, the currency of information, downloadable documents and other data sets were used to compare various sectors of the Nigerian economy, including all tiers of government, academia and the organised private sector. The study revealed that the organised private sector and private educational institutions are doing better than government educational institutions and ministries.Actions for increasing presence in cyberspace and achieving e-governance for improved services and productivity in Nigeria and similar developing countries are recommended.
Highlights
Cyberspace has emerged as an indispensable domain for individuals, businesses and governments
Nigeria has consistently maintained its lead in the growth of the number of Internet users in Africa, as engagement in cyberspace is increasing as the mainstream of human enterprise, cyber-criminality is increasing at a fast pace worldwide
TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS Given the large number of tertiary institutions, the results of the survey were categorised into various groups, namely universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (CoEs)
Summary
Cyberspace has emerged as an indispensable domain for individuals, businesses and governments. Nigeria’s journey in cyberspace started without planned information systems and network infrastructure, until the establishment of a regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) [4]. NCC’s policy and institutional reforms for the liberalisation of the telecoms sector accelerated the Internet growth and penetration rate in Nigeria. The United Nations’ four-stage model framework for benchmarking the various stages in evolution of e-government services of countries is utilised to investigate the web presence of various tiers of Nigerian government, ministries, as well as tertiary institutions and the organised private sector [7]. Based on international best practice, a list of imperative actions is proffered for improving the cyberspace presence of Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries, so as to achieve security and economic sustainability. The interactive nature of the site (ability to receive feedback from clients, customers), blogs, chat forums, help features, two-way communication on the site, response to emails, and
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