Monte Carlo Simulation for Bottleneck and Risk Driver Analysis in Nigerian E-government Project Execution

This study applies an integrated Monte Carlo, PERT-CPM modelling framework to analyze bottlenecks and risk drivers in the Nigerian e-government passport issuance process. The research models it as a 14-activity workflow of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), to quantify uncertainty, identify critical tasks, and evaluate the likelihood of meeting a maximum seven-day service benchmark. Results reveal a positively skewed completion-time distribution typical of bureaucratic processes, with mean durations ranging from 5.7 to 6.2 days and up to 20% of cases exceeding the SLA target. Critical path and sensitivity analyses the dominant bottlenecks and risk drivers, with high criticality scores (ρ ≈ 0.7–0.8) and near-zero slack. These findings suggest that inefficiencies are concentrated within mid- and late-stage hybrid operations where digital and physical systems intersect. The study contributes to e-governance performance evaluation by demonstrating how stochastic project modelling can diagnose uncertainty, expose systemic vulnerabilities, and guide data-driven policy reform in developing contexts.