President Buhari Bars Govt Officials From Using Private Emails For Official Purposes

President Muhammadu Buhari

Government officials have been barred from using private emails for official purposes by President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to a statement released by presidential aide, Femi Adesina, the President stated this at the State House, Abuja on Thursday, February 2, when he unveiled and launched two new policies developed by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

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.

The President said that the digital economy sector has been most successful in the diversification of the nation's economy, saving the Federal Government over N45.7 billion in IT projects clearance.

Linking the two policies to the diversification and prosperity of the economy, President Buhari said the National Policy on the Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains and the National Data Policy, are central to accelerating the development of the nation's digital economy sector, adding that this administration would continue to develop policies and programmes in furtherance of the diversification of the economy:

''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 its impact on the different sectors of our economy.'' he said