Alausa Alert Goes Digital

Alausa Alert, the official publication of the Lagos State Government, has gone digital. The newspaper, which was established by the state government to bridge the communication gap between the people and the government, could now be accessed on-line via www.alausaalert.org.

According to the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Raji, who is the driving force behind the initiative, the major objective of the state government in digitizing Alausa Alert is to strengthen its readership.

He said: “Each copy of Alausa Alert is a reader’s delight and a collector’s item. It is full of enriching and educative contents. It is, therefore, in an attempt to ensure that people all over the world have access to the publication that we conceived and perfected the idea of its digitization."

“The beautiful thing about this innovation”, according to the Special Adviser, “is that past editions of Alausa Alert could now be accessed online by researchers, government officials and other interested members of the public” adding that with mobile phones that have Internet facility anyone could easily access Alausa Alert from any part of the world.

Speaking further on the innovation, Raji declared, “It is a big relief to the Ministry of Information and Strategy, in view of the volume of requests it usually had to cope with in respect of the hard copy of the newspaper from across the state”.

He further disclosed that the recently created Web Unit of the Ministry of Information and Strategy, is an integral part of the state government’s on-going plans to incorporate ICT into all aspects of governance.

He maintained that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aids government, private enterprises and individuals to improve upon their services and output just as breathtaking speed and digital trends are revolutionizing how governments, citizens and businesses interact in the modern-day world.

Digitization of data, he added, has led to immense benefits and have contributed so much to the advancement of information sharing and dissemination at an alarming speed.

In recent times, the Ministry of Information and Strategy has been championing the digitization of films for electronic access and effective record management. With the help of digitization, videos and films of the current and past administrations in Lagos State are now available for public consumption. Over 1000 videos have been digitized and uploaded and could be viewed onwww.lagostate.tv.

It will be recalled that the Office of the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, through the Web Unit of the Ministry, has begun the live streaming of major government events across the state. Consequently, by logging on towww.lagostate.tv, , a lot of people have been able to follow state events such as the 100 Days in office of the Governor, EHINGBETI 2014 and Ministerial Press Briefings among others.

Similarly, the Office of the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy holds a monthly Twitter Conference on a specific government’s policy or issue with members of the Lagos State Civil Society in conjunction with other stakeholders. The last edition of the Twitter Conference, which dwelt on the state’s debt profile, had in attendance officials of the state’s Debt Management Office. The average audience reach of the twitter conference is about 300,000. The state’s official twitter handle, @followlasg, has a current followership of 3,714. Equally, the state’s Facebook page, with a total of 59, 800, is the most liked state government’s Facebook page in the country.