Federal Civil Service completes digitalisation drive, goes paperless

By : John Akubo

Date: 1 January 2026 3:15am WAT

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Mrs.Walson-Jack

Mrs.Walson-Jack

Nigeria has reached a major governance milestone as the Federal Civil Service officially transitioned to a fully paperless system, marking the completion of a nationwide digitalisation drive across ministries and extra-ministerial departments.   The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF), Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, announced the development in Abuja at a press briefing yesterday, describing the development as a decisive break from decades of paper-based bureaucracy.   According to her, as of the close of business on Tuesday, December 30, 2025, all federal ministries and extra-ministerial departments had complied with presidential and administrative directives to operate entirely through digital workflows.   “This milestone marks a bold transition from a paper-based legacy bureaucracy to a modern, accountable, and digitally-enabled public service,” Walson-Jack said. “Simply put, all ministries in the Federal Civil Service are now paperless.”   She said the achievement represents a significant step in public sector reform, strengthening accountability, transparency, institutional memory and service delivery, while aligning Nigeria’s governance framework with global best practices.   Walson-Jack stressed that the paperless milestone was the outcome of years of deliberate and incremental reforms, driven by successive Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation.   She recalled that the digital transformation journey formally began in 2017, under the leadership of Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, with the launch of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (2017–2020), which, for the first time, identified digitalisation as a core reform priority and introduced the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) concept.   The reform momentum, she added, was consolidated under Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan, through the Federal Civil Service Strategy 2021–2025, which expanded ECM into a broader digital content services agenda.   “The focus moved beyond digitising documents to transforming how information flows, how decisions are made, how work is tracked, and how services are delivered across the public service,” she explained.   Upon assuming office in August 2024, Walson-Jack said that digital adoption across the Federal Civil Service stood at about 30 per cent, with only a few ministries operating partially paperless systems.

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