INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC SECTOR ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION IN NIGERIA

This study examined the relationship between information technology and public-sector economic contribution in Nigeria, focusing specifically on technological infrastructure and technological skills. The study adopted an ex-post facto research design and utilised secondary panel data obtained from fifteen purposively selected federal ministries. Data were sourced from government publications, annual budget documents, National Bureau of Statistics reports, relevant government agencies, international development organisations and complementary institutional reports. The analysis employed panel stationarity tests, panel cointegration analysis, Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) estimation and the ARDL Error Correction Model (ECM). The panel stationarity results indicated that the variables were integrated at either level, I(0), or first difference, I(1), thereby supporting the use of the Panel ARDL framework. The cointegration results established the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among economic contribution of information technology, technological infrastructure and technological skills. The Panel ARDL estimates showed that technological infrastructure had a positive and statistically significant long-run relationship with economic contribution, while technological skills also demonstrated a positive and statistically significant relationship. The short-run estimates produced similar positive relationships, indicating that improvements in infrastructure and technological competencies were associated with increased economic contribution.