Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs

There appears to be no functional website for the Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs. A search on the popular search engine, Google, did not return any online address for the ministry. When our correspondent called a spokesperson of the ministry, Phil Oshodi, on Tuesday, she said the ministry launched a website around February/ March but did not name an address.

“I know we created one sometimes in February/March,” Oshodi says. Responding to subsequent enquiries by our correspondent, Oshodi sent a text message saying, “I am in the church, let’s talk about this tomorrow (Thursday).”

The absence of a website for the Ministry of Special Duties tends to support the argument that the ministry has no direct relevance to governance.

Ministry of Power

The Ministry of Power, under the leadership of Prof. Chinedu Nebo, agrees with the numerous visitors to its website, www.power.gov.ng, that the design, layout and visual resolution of the portal is poor and below par.

To buttress this point, the web administrator simply placed a notice on the website which reads, “Website under construction. Please, bear with us as we reconstruct our website for better view.”

Meanwhile, visiting the website for valuable information on the worsening state of electricity supply , privatisation updates and power generation reports is a worthwhile adventure as such data are often updated for public consumption.

However, more needs to be done to update the ‘Newsletter,’ ‘Publication,’ ‘Video Gallery’ and ‘Photo Album’ sections as they are currently left dormant with no entries.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

A few weeks after recovering from the hacking by a group of hackers who described themselves as “Pakistan Cyber Eaglez” and purportedly from Pakistan, the website of the ministry of foreign affairs, www.mfa.gov.ng, is far from reflecting the dynamism of the nation’s foreign policies.

A cursory look at the website on Wednesday shows that the ‘latest news’ that the site is dishing out to the international community is that the doors to the ministry will be shut on Independence Day, 2012. “Office would be closed on October 1, 2012 for Independence Day,” it was stated.

A visit to www.mofa.gov.lr, the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Liberia, a fellow West African nation, shows that the country takes the issue of online presence seriously to project its foreign policy thrust to the rest of the world.

www.mofa.gov.lr is not left dormant like that of Nigeria as the managers of the portal deem it wise to use it to inform the world about its cooperation with sub-regional, regional and international development partners, while the country doubles its effort to be a regional player.

Even on a public holiday, such as May Day, the website on Wednesday had an update about the official engagement of the Liberian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augustine Kpehe-Ngafuan with the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Vuk Jeremic.

Perhaps, the Nigerian foreign affairs ministry needs to take a cue from the website of the United States Department of State. Apart from the fact that the State Departments’s website, www.state.gov, has a good visual resolution, visitors get the needed information on the United States public diplomacy while the website remains connected with seven social media plug-ins for the sole purpose of social media engagement.

Ministry of Police Affairs

The website of the Ministry of Police Affairs, www.mpa.gov.ng, like the foreign affairs ministry website is also far from being updated. A visit to the website, shows that the portal is only being used to publicise courtesy visits by the Minister, Navy Capt. Caleb Olubolade.

It appears that the website managers have gone to sleep. The last time the portal was updated was August 28, 2012, when the minister paid a courtesy visit to the Nigeria Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Bukuru, Plateau State.

As at the time of filing this report, there was no news item, photograph or video clip of the just concluded Nigeria Police Week on the website of the ministry which is saddled with the responsibility of formulating policies that will ensure efficient and effective policing of the country.

Besides, there is a need for social media plug-ins on the website whenever the ministry decides to maximize the use of the site, so as to make its online presence social.