Utilization of ICT Software Resources for Business, News, Education and Health Before and During Coronavirus Outbreak in Nigeria

Abstract

This work carried out a comparative study on the utilization of ICT resources (software and radio/television
broadcast) for applications such as business, news, education and health before and during coronavirus outbreak
in Nigeria. Borgu local government, Niger state was purposively selected for the study. The study adopted survey
method of enquiry in which selection of participants in the study area has only one inclusion criteria which is
interest in participating in the survey. A self-constructed software resources utilization questionnaire (SRUQ) was
administered via Google form to the interested participants in the study area and the responses retrieved were
statistically analysed. The results obtained showed decreasing utilization order for software resources (?[eeducation]>?[e-news]>?[e-business]>?[e-health]) and decreasing utilization order (?[e-news]>?[eeducation]>?[e-health]>?[e-business) for radio/television broadcast. It was also found that utilization of software
resources for all itemised applications increased but not significantly (p>0.5) and while that of radio/television
broadcast increased significantly (p<0.5) during coronavirus outbreak. Moreover, radio/television broadcast
possessed significantly higher utilisation for all applications as compared with software resources before and
during coronavirus outbreak. It was therefore recommended that relevant agencies take necessary steps that would
afford proper utilization of software resources for national development as witnessed in the developed countries.