Captivating Experience in South Korea

The date was 27 November 2015 and here I was among a Nigerian delegation sponsored by the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the international cooperation agency of the Korean government similar in function to the DFID (British) and USAID (American), to undertake a study tour of Korea for two weeks. The trip was made up of 34 participants scheduled to attend two courses: the first course was on eSecurity comprising 22 participants and the second was on Project Management in eGovernance comprising 12 participants.

All the participants had been selected from among staff of federal government agencies with eGovernment related responsibilities.
Some of the agencies included the CAC, NIMC, FRSC, FIRS, Customs, NITDA, the Federal Ministries of Science and Technology, Communications, Information and Foreign Affairs, FCTA, National Planning Commission, Federal Civil Service Commission, NCC, Galaxy Backbone among others.

In order to make the trip, KOICA, working closely with the Federal Ministry of Communications, had liaised with the agencies to select the participants for the two courses in order to ensure representation by a team that would be able to translate the experience into action leading to tangible advancement in Nigeria’s use of ICTs for governance and delivery of public services. Before departure, each participant had to submit a work plan demonstrating how ICTs were being employed in his/her job area and how the learning experience would contribute to his/her improved capacity.

We departed Abuja onboard Ethiopian Airways around 1pm on 27 November 2015 and after almost 26 hours, and two stopovers in Addis Ababa and Hong Kong, arrived South Korea’s Incheon Airport around 5pm on 28 November 2015. The subsequent one-hour drive from Incheon to Seoul was largely forgettable as we were all too tired to look around and savour our changed surroundings. Coming from Abuja with weather temperatures around 30oC, the weather condition in Korea which was around 6oC, was anything less than pleasant.

The KOICA reception team, however, proved most hospitable as we were handed warm clothing during our brief arrival ceremony at Shilla Stay Mapo Hotel, by Gongdoek station, Seoul. Though tired, one of the first things I did was to upload a picture of the view from the 20th floor room where I was staying to my Facebook profile. It was simply too beautiful to ignore. The next day was Sunday, a rest day, and our sessions commenced on Monday 30th November.

The sessions commenced at the KOICA Training Centre International Conference Room and this was where we were taken through the Korean eGovernment story. One of the telling moments during this session had to do with the acknowledgement of the presenter, of the sacrifices made by the older generations of Koreans in order to build a country that was truly economically prosperous. Though not a part of her presentation, she mentioned this in such a simple but compelling manner that the entire delegation burst out into simultaneous applause. This encounter was made more telling when, during a break session, we met another delegation from Nepal. When we introduced ourselves as Nigerians, one of them burst out laughing saying “Boko Haram” and another, a lady, started asking after the kidnapped Chibok girls. At that point, your guess is as good as mine, what kinds of words we had for our past leaders!

The second day had more of these same sessions where we reviewed global eGovernment trends and innovation and also some eGovernment practices in Korea. I was struck by the conscious migration of the Korean government to m-Government which is the use of mobile technology to provide personal access to government services by citizens.

According to the Koreans, m-Government can be defined as a strategy involving the utilisation of all kinds of wireless and mobile technology services, applications and devices as being complimentary to e-Government for improving benefits to all parties involved in e-Government development including citizens, businesses, employees and other institutions.

This direction of the Korean Government is dubbed Government 3.0 with a vision to achieve “the happiness of all the people”.

A very important session outlined the five success factors for eGovernment namely finance, capacity to use ICT products (and services), technology, laws and regulations, and ICT governance (organisation). These are a MUST for which we need to plan in Nigeria if we are to achieve any kind of success in our eGovernment evolution. Interestingly, these factors have been given due consideration in the Nigerian eGovernment Master plan which is currently awaiting the ratification
of Federal Executive Council.

On the third day, we visited the new Government complex in Sejong – a brand new, purpose built city for housing the central government of Korea with a view to depopulating Seoul and taking development to other parts of the country. The government buildings comprise a 15-building complex, all interlinked by beautiful, nature-themed roof top gardens. The government complex is designed to be eco-friendly with 30 per cent of its energy coming from renewable energy sources particularly solar power and geothermal energy. The city, and especially the government complex, is supposed to be a model for sustainable government buildings for other countries. While in Sejong, we also visited the new National Library.

On the fourth day, we were taken to Incheon where we visited the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) and Incheon museum.
The entire team was astounded by a city that was merely a fishing port at the turn of the last century but has now become a massive modern city modeled after cities like Shanghai, Singapore and Dubai. The G-tower building which houses the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) is a 33-storey complex that stood on a site which had previously been high sea!

From the 33rd floor, we had a vantage view of most of Incheon. We saw the North East Asia Tower - Korea’s tallest building standing at 68 storey high, the Songdo ConvenSia or Convention Centre – which constantly hosts global events and thereby attracts visitors to Incheon on a regular basis, the Tri bowl – a series of three buildings shaped like bowls themed after the sky, land and sea, and of course, the imposing Incheon bridge – an 18km, 6-lane beauty which crosses the West Sea. I recall asking about the key economic activities taking place in the FEZ and the guide explained that these include bio technology, outsourcing, software development, capacity building (education). In the area of education, for instance, there are currently four global universities located in Incheon and the target number of universities is set at 10.

This answer displayed the level of foresight and visionary thinking driving the Korean economy. Incheon is also not left behind in Korea’s drive to be a top sporting destination since the Seoul Olympics of 1988 and the World Athletics Championship in 2013 hosted in Daegu. Incheon is one of the six cities billed to host the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2017.

Over the weekend of December 5 and 6, I paid a visit to my friend who works in the town of Goeje. The trip to Goeje, was another experience in itself. Goeje is a five-hour road journey from Seoul but just over two hours if you catch a 50 minute flight from Seoul to Busan (Korea’s second largest city) and drive from Busan to Goeje (about 50 minutes). 

 It was my first experience with the Korean subway and a major striking difference registered in my mind between the English and the Korean subway systems. In England, the passengers can access the train tracks directly- There is nothing stopping the passenger from jumping down to the train tracks. However, in Korea, there is a wall which prevents this access and the train doors are aligned with the wall doors for passengers to board and alight from the train at the stations.

This is a major safety measure which should be copied world over, in my opinion. Goeje itself was another experience for me. My friend had picked me up at the Busan Airport and when we arrived Goeje, he took me straight to the Samsung Heavy Industries ship building yard, the daily work place of some 30,000 people! It is reputed to be the world’s third largest ship building dockyard after Hyundai’s yard in Ulsan and the DSME yard in Geoje all three in South Korea.

 I saw the huge carcass of the FPSO project on which he is currently working with an international team and he recounted hisrunning battles with the technical team (he is on the design team) which is similar to what we have in the IT industry where the design team and the programmers are always at loggerheads on how to achieve the desired outcomes. Without any doubt, I was proud of the work that he is doing. I also saw the carcass of the Nigeria LNG vessel, NLNG is one of four vessels that will replace the existing six LNG vessels used by the NLNG to deliver gas shipments to customers around the world. 

I could not help but ask if these kinds of jobs could not be handled by a known company based in Lagos at which my friend laughed and lamented at how much has been invested, by way of contracts, infrastructure, power requirements and skilled manpower in that company without results. Words fail me in describing my amazement at the drive from Busan to Goeje, in which we had to drive through several tunnels burrowed through mountains and hills. The ultimate fascination came when we entered a tunnel which passed right through the sea; a marvel of engineering.

During one of the sessions in which my group presented an action plan of what we planned to do upon our return to Nigeria, one of the professors asked if we had been to the Seoul traffic management centre to which we replied no and asked if he could make this happen. This was one of the best visits of the entire trip as we saw live operations of a city-wide traffic management control
centre- The Seoul Metropolitan Government Traffic Management Centre. We saw technology in advanced use to ensure that road traffic in Seoul was kept moving.

 Most of the roads in Seoul are kept under camera surveillance and the traffic agency has a mandate to attend to any development which could result in a traffic build up within a seven-minute time frame. This centre was of particular interest to our team because of the manner in which they achieved cooperation among several Government agencies such as the police and the emergency services among others. Just as we were leaving the offices, several police officers were resuming their work shift.

We visited two different Samsung companies; Samsung SDS – a software company under the Samsung stable and Samsung d’Light – a venue where the visitors are taken on a tour Samsung technologies that are designed to delight the users such as household electronics and a few virtual reality experiences.

For me, my most exciting visit must have been to the Korea Trade Network (KTNET) established in 1991 as a driving engine to enhance Korea’s trade competitiveness. It has currently been designated by the Korean government as infrastructure service provider
for seven business areas. After the presentation, I had to ask the Head of Global business as to what business model they operate. To this, he described how some services for example, the central eProcurement system (KONEPS), are paid for directly by the central government while other services such as the Customs Automation System, attract transaction charges from system users.

 I also asked if there were any other organisations rendering this type of service in Korea and he replied that they are a specially sanctioned monopoly,

created by government to deliver benefits to government operations and ultimately to the people. This proved most instructive as we have created a similar type of organisation in Nigeria but institutional resistance among others has stultified its effectiveness.

During the second week I was able to visit one of the most globally renowned places of worship in the world, the Yoido Full Gospel Church founded by the legendary Paul, now David, Yongi Cho. Here I had the opportunity
to join fellow worshippers and even though I didn’t understand a word of what was spoken, I was grateful for the opportunity.

Though not exhaustive, there are some immediate lessons which the Korean experience have highlighted for me. They include:
Visionary leadership - There is no alternative to sound, committed and visionary leadership at the national level if a nation is going to move forward. A few initiatives have been started which need to be made to scale for national impact. For example the use, by all government MDAs, of the Government Data Centre for all hosted services from website to portal to application hosting needs to be given the required leadership push. Another is the ratification of the eGovernment Master plan by the Federal Executive Council.

Consideration – I noticed that the expressways
in Seoul have walls by the sides which curve slightly inwards at the top and I asked what these walls mean. I was told that they are to insulate the nearby houses from the noise of the speeding cars on the expressway. This made me marvel as to the level of attention and consideration being paid to the wellbeing of the people by its government.

Integrity – Generally, the Koreans struck me as a people of integrity. From all our interactions, feedback, narration of historical encounters and other details I gathered that the integrity level of the Koreans, as a collective people, is very high and they would probably form better and safer trade partners for Nigeria than some other nations.

Responsiveness – After the ferry disaster of 2014, which got Korea in the global spotlight for all the wrong reasons, the government split the former ministry of government and home affairs called MOGAHA at the
time, to bring out a ministry which would be better suited to responding to disasters and ensuring minimal impact during such unexpected events.

Knowledgeable citizenry – During one of our walking visits to places around Seoul, an old man walked up to us and inquired as to our country of origin. When he heard Nigeria, his immediate reaction was to empathise with us due to the falling crude oil prices. When we pointed out to him that the falling prices favoured his country, he was quick to point out that the situation was equally as bad for Korea being an export driven economy. Falling oil prices meant that the rest of the world had reduced buying power and therefore Korean
exports would suffer for it. 

This reduction in exports would swallow whatever gains would have been recorded in lower prices of petroleum products. I marveled that this old man was properly connected to global events and local impacts.

On Friday 11 December 2015, we had the work plan presentation and closing ceremony and the professors gave a few tips on how to improve them. The next day saw us checking out of the hotel to head for the Incheon Airport. It was on this trip that we were able to appreciate the magnificence of the Incheon Airport with its 150 boarding gates!

After all said and done, this experience has highlighted the need for the average Nigerian to ask himself/herself salient questions about his/her role in national development especially public officials, who hold the key to implementation and execution of projects.
Without a personal commitment to national development on the part of the citizens, there will be no progress.

Just for the record, I thought I knew a few things about the “Asian Tiger countries” for example Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea etc but from this trip it is obvious to me that the much I heard is not even the tip of the iceberg, literally! Therefore a visit to the Democratic Republic of Korea is highly recommended for business, pleasure, learning and any other that readily requires a foreign visit.