Professor Muhammed Bello: Steering Nigeria’s digital transformation drive on path of prosperity
An alumnus of the famous Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Professor Muhammed Bello Abubakar has been holding the helm of affairs of Galaxy Backbone Limited for 3 years now.
Prior to his appointment as MD/CEO of Galaxy Backbone, he was the Executive Director and a Principal start-up for the establishment and development of the National Centre for Petroleum Research and Development of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, where he spearheaded a cross-cutting edge research that developed the conceptual exploration model deployed in the successful oil and gas exploration in the frontier basin of the Northeast Nigeria.
Since his assumption of office in 2020, Professor Abubakar has taken initiatives to fulfill the mandates of Galaxy Backbone to promote digital inclusion and drive digital transformation in the public sector, private sector and in various communities.
According to Accenture, “Digital transformation is the process by which companies embed technologies across their businesses to drive fundamental change. The benefits? Increased efficiency, greater business agility and, ultimately, the unlocking of new value for employees, customers and shareholders.”
As the head of Nigeria’s Information Technology and Shared Services provider, Professor Abubakar has in his regime deployed shared ICT infrastructure, applications and services to all Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as institutions to drive digital transformation. Nigeria has, indeed, gone digital, having made giant strides and bold steps that have been taken by this current government to enhance digital transformation with Galaxy Backbone (GBB) Limited living up to its name as the Backbone of Nigeria’s digital transformation.
One of such infrastructures deployed by GBB promoting digital transformation is the National Shared Service Centre (Now Muhammadu Buhari Galaxy Backbone Headquarters). The National Shared Service is housed in a seven-story twin building which sits beautifully at Central Business District area of the nation’s Federal Capital Territory.
The National Shared Service Centre is helping to reduce the cost of governance by serving as a common platform for sharing data across ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). It is also driving the digital transformation of the public sector by deploying world class tech equipment across MDAs to facilitate effectiveness in the fulfillment of various government functions.
Under Abubakar’s leadership, Galaxy has built a multi-platform ICT infrastructure connecting more than 400 Ministries, Departments and agencies into a “one government” network platform known as 1-Gov.net and currently deploying terrestrial (Fibre) broadband connectivity to 30 states of the federation.
Also, within the National Shared Services Center is the Executive Telepresence Room for 3D high resolution virtual meetings with partners, international bodies, governments, customers and stakeholders across the world. This has proven to be important after the world was suddenly hit by the global pandemic of COVID-19. Meetings have gone on to be mostly virtual across many nations and organizations.
During the peak of the COVID pandemic in Nigeria, GBB installed over 150 Unified Communication devices, from Video Conferencing terminals to Video Phones in offices and residences of top government officials to ensure smooth government operations during the pandemic. Prof. Muhammad Abubakar noted that these services has enabled the executive officers of the Government to communicate amongst themselves without breaching COVID protocols. As of 2021, Professor Abubakar disclosed that the agency saved the Federal Government over N3billion from video conferencing.
GBB also operates a Tier IV data center in Kano which is the highest ranking data centre in Nigeria and the first public owned data center in the North. With a reliability rating of 99.9 per cent the highest that can be attained globally, the Data Centre is well suited to host local and international data from private sector and public sector players.
The agency also runs the only TIER III Datacenter in the Nation’s public sector with a Back-Up Datacentre in Enugu.
Professor Abubakar has also at several occasions emphasized the importance of training and digital literacy in digital transformation. In line with this commitment to develop and enhance digital literacy, GBB has also been involved in various capacity building programmes for individuals drawn from across the Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The training courses usually range from Digital Economy and The Nigerian Federal Public Sector, Use of GOVMAIL (the official government email) for digital communication and Network & Cyber security in the Nigerian Public sector amongst other Digital Service programmes. So far the agency has trained over 500 public sector officials.
The efforts so far are paying off and Nigeria is gradually moving to take its place in the emerging digital economy under the stellar leadership of Professor Muhammed Bello Abubakar.
