Ondo To Rolls Out Kaadi Igbe Ayo, Smartcard For Digitalized Service Delivery

ON July 2 this year, the Olusegun Mimiko-led administration will begin the implementation of a mult-purpose smartcard, Kaadi Igbe Ayo, in Ondo State.  While smartcard technology has been deployed by several governments for specific purposes, to date, there has been no multi-purpose smartcard powered by the social democratic mantra of democratising access to all the good things of life, through which citizens can access and enjoy all the dividends of democracy; a card that would make it impossible for the people to be cheated.

This is precisely what Kaadi Igbe Ayo (KAI), Ondo State’s latest in digitalised service delivery, is targeted at achieving. In accordance with its name (literally, card of joyful living), KAI is being deployed by the Ondo State government to facilitate strategic planning and development, efficient record keeping, human resource monitoring in the public sector and anti-corruption drive and solutions. It will also provide a higher level of qualitative/quantitative service delivery in the health, education, transport and agro-allied sectors.

The residency card, it has been established, would serve as an interface in all transactions between the government and residents, allow all residents equal access to government’s social and welfare services and allow government  to monitor the distribution of such services even to the remotest parts of the state at every point. But that is not all: it facilitates the systematic development of databases for efficient security and surveillance purposes, the categorisation of citizens for employment, taxation and financial palliatives, the use/management of public facilities (public transport, subsidized consumer products, even fertilizer).

During the formal launching of Kaadi Igbe Ayo in February 2013  at an occasion attended by the late Deji of Akure, HRH Adebiyi Adesida; the Osemawe of Ondo, HRH Victor Kiladejo; the Zaki of Arigidi, HRH Yisa Olanipekun, and many other royal fathers from across the state; the then Information Minister, Labaran Maku; Governor Olusegun Mimiko and his wife, Oluwakemi; a former governor of Ondo State, Evangelist Bamidele Olumilua; members of the Ondo State House of Assembly, the President, Customary Court, Justice Folasade Aguda-Taiwo; Dr Olu Agunloye, members of the immediate past cabinet; market women, the many pregnant women clad in T-shirts, artisans and members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), among others, the Federal Government had indicated that it would key into the project on a national scale.

Speaking on behalf of the Federal Government, Maku had described Mimiko as a pace setter in governance in the country and an unparalleled disciple of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo who had, through revolutionary programmes in health, education, health, urban development, job creation, agriculture and commerce, among others, tackled poverty and improved the wellbeing of the majority of the people. He said: “This is a historic, ground-breaking technological invention. I have come to launch a smartcard that is, in all senses, truly revolutionary, the first in Nigeria and the world. This card is about welfare. I have been on good governance tour and these are the kinds of things that we want to see.”

On that occasion, Mimiko, while detailing the welfare-based, benefits-driven governance which mandated the prioritization of certain people-oriented projects in the last four years, including the Mother and Child Hospitals; Abiye Maternal Care Centres; Mega-Primary Schools; over 650 purpose-specific and state-wide community projects and countless such other efforts in road reconstruction, urban renewal and city beautification, had said the smartcard initiative was in fulfilment of his 2009 inauguration promise to provide efficient service delivery to the people.