Abstract
Digital public services increasingly underpin crisis response, yet the competencies citizens need are rarely cultivated from early education. This study reframes digital citizenship as crisis competence, testing whether story-based instruction, using Click Smart: Adventures in Digital Citizenship for Children, prepares primary pupils in Kwara State, Nigeria for engagement with digital public systems. A pre-test/post-test design tracked changes in online safety awareness, ethical behaviour, critical evaluation, and participation after librarian-facilitated lessons. Findings show pupils hold basic operational skills but that targeted instruction markedly improves critical judgement and risk awareness, positioning school libraries as sites for early readiness in crisis-driven digital government.