The Federal Government has adopted the .gov.ng unified email platform for the federal civil service of Nigeria.

The adoption of the domain platform, marked the official take off of the official electronic communication platform in the Federal Civil Service of the Federation.

Addressing the Directorate of the Federal Civil Service of the federation, the Minister of Communication Technmology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, said the switch to gov.ng is an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology to drive transparency in governance and improve quality and cost effectiveness of public service delivery.

The Minister said the adoption became significant considering several unsuccessful attempts by both present and other administrations in the past.

She urged workers of the federal civil service to re-commit themselves towards this common purpose to improve internal productivity and quality service delivery to all citizens.

She added that "though, this may have come late, today's event marks a major milestone in our pursuit to use the potentials of ICT to advance our economy. "

She noted that the new platform will improve the speed and efficiency of official communications and provide the means to share, store and gain access to official documents anytime, anywhere and on any computer or mobile device.

"The migration of websites to the .gov.ng platform and the unified email platform would not only enable the delivery of government business over a more secure and robust technology platform, it would also enhance national cyber identity on the internet and improves confidence in citizens, businesses and foreigners as they seek Government information and services online," she added.

She said the platform could be accessed through the www.fedcs.gov.ng, a simple easy to navigate portal to enable the users activate email accounts.

The portal will also eventually serve as the central information portal or Intranet for government, offering authorized and secure access to online services documents and resources.

A standard naming convention such as firstname.surname@fedcs.gov.ng. has been adopted in the creation of email accounts for all civil servants.

Special e-mail accounts have been created for Ministers who are not part of the civil service workforce but should be associated with their portfolios - but still with the standard naming convention.

Role specific email accounts have also been created, but she said they will be extremely limited to avoid a proliferation of email accounts and unnecessary redundancy. These special accounts may be used for non personal, departmental functions and roles.

Meanwhile, the platform is available on mobile devices such as BB, Android and Windows phones and tablets.

According to the Minister, about 42,000 email accounts have so far been created for all officers on GL 10 to 17 in the Federal Civil Service, while they expand the infrastructure and the capacity of the platform email accounts to be created for federal civil servants on GL09 and below.

Prior to this adoption, the Ministry of Communication Technology with the support of the Council of ICT Heads hard embarked on an initiative to standardize the look and feel of federal government websites and also migrate all Ministry websites to the .gov.ng domain name.

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