Nigeria faces a persistent challenge in the implementation of her poverty alleviation policies, especially in rural communities where millions of citizens remain financially excluded. Government interventions often fail to reach intended beneficiaries due to lack of infrastructure, unreliable payment methods, and absence of such digital systems that accommodate the realities of the rural population. This project aimed to design, develop, and pilot a Digital Payment Solution system called DigiPayG2C as a secure and inclusive web-based financial platform to facilitate digital payments particularly for government-to-citizen (G2C) fund disbursements among underserved and rural populations in Nigeria. Major features of the system include a multilingual and culturally-relevant GUI, a user management module using verified National Identity Number (NIN) data, government manager dashboard, wallet funding and withdrawal options, secure peer-to-peer fund transfer, polls, and feedback reporting tools that ensure transparent transaction recordings and financial accountability. The system was designed with low-cost technologies and structures that integrate seamlessly with existing government systems. The project was executed in four phases of research, system design, prototype development, and field validation. A systematic approach to data gathering was adopted, as well as exploratory evaluation of existing service procedures on government poverty alleviation implementation and fund disbursement policies. While the Unified Modeling Language (UML) was adopted for actual system design, implementation of the prototype system followed the Agile Development methodology. System validation exercise carried out in selected communities shows that the new system enabled intuitive interactions as well as real-time, traceable, and verifiable transactions, that significantly reduced corruption, and empowered marginalized populations in Nigeria.
Anthony Ifeanyi Otuonye2* Uchenna Chinyere Onyemauche1 (Tue,) studied this question.