Revamping Nigeria’s economy through sustainable data governance

Abstract

Big data technologies have intensified the need for Sustainable Data Governance (SDG). Significant empirical evidence from literature revealed that of the 2.7 zettabytes of data now in the digital universe, only 67% of organizations deployed data governance or data intelligence solutions, 76% of company executives consider information "mission-critical" or most important asset, while 46% including Nigeria had no formal governance strategy in place. Globally, significant relationships exist between SDG and Sustainable Information and Communication Technology (SICT). Data governance (DG) that is driven by SICT is agile, holistic, security-embedded, accurate, high-quality, sustainable, and on a real-time enterprise data pipeline, required in revamping any nation’s economy. Despite these global impacts of SDG in revamping the national economy, numerous investigations have shown that DG in Nigeria has remained relatively non-existent or unattended to because its approach is driven by IT that adopted rigid and fragmented processes that were carried out on a system by system basis, lacked a single version of the truth or one single reference for critical master data across geographies, business structure, and wider support of the organization. Poor sustainability of ICT in Nigeria also posed barriers that impede progress related to DG due to corrupt policies and practices, ignorance, and illiteracy that plagued SICT innovations in Nigeria. The authors adopted the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as the conceptual framework for this study. UTAUT model claimed that users’ acceptance behavior towards technology is determined by users’ perceived benefits of using technology and the factors that drive users’ decision to use it. A narrative review methodology was adopted in this study to review significant information based on the study conceptual framework, and existing systems that enhance SDG in revamping Nigeria’s economy. Articles reviewed include peer-reviewed articles and other documentaries within the last 5 years, extracted from electronic databases, using keywords such as “ICT and SDG”, “SDG and national economic development”, “Trends for SDG”, etc. Results from this study revealed that better decision-making, analytics, and regulatory compliance to policies, laws, and guidelines on the adoption of ICT, coupled with good formulation and communication of same, are the major drivers of sustainable DG for revamping the national economy. The result of this study may increase understanding, minimize corrupt practices and encourage trust and regulatory compliance of ICT innovations, adoption, and sustainability that can positively impact SDG for revamping Nigeria’s economy.