In a landmark achievement for governance reform, the Federal Civil Service of Nigeria has officially completed its transition to a fully paperless operating system. This move concludes a nationwide digitalisation drive that has transformed all ministries and extra-ministerial departments.
A Decisive Break from Paper-Based Bureaucracy
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF), Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, made the official announcement during a press briefing held in Abuja. She described the development as a decisive and final break from decades of reliance on paper-based bureaucratic processes.
Mrs Walson-Jack confirmed that as of the close of business on Tuesday, December 30, 2025, every federal ministry and extra-ministerial department had fully complied with presidential and administrative directives to operate using entirely digital workflows. "This milestone marks a bold transition from a paper-based legacy bureaucracy to a modern, accountable, and digitally-enabled public service," she stated. "Simply put, all ministries in the Federal Civil Service are now paperless."
A Journey of Incremental Digital Reforms
The HCSF emphasised that this achievement was not an overnight success but the result of years of deliberate and incremental reforms driven by successive leaders of the service. She outlined the key phases of this transformative journey:
- The formal digital transformation journey 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). This plan first identified digitalisation as a core reform priority and introduced the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) concept.
- The reform momentum was later consolidated under Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan through the Federal Civil Service Strategy 2021–2025. This phase expanded the ECM initiative 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," Walson-Jack explained.
Significant Leap in Public Service Delivery
According to the Head of Service, this paperless milestone represents a major leap forward in Nigeria's public sector reform agenda. She highlighted that the shift strengthens several critical areas of governance:
- Accountability and Transparency: Digital workflows create clear audit trails.
- Institutional Memory: Secure digital archiving preserves vital records.
- Service Delivery: Faster processing and reduced administrative bottlenecks.
This transformation aligns Nigeria's governance framework with global best practices for modern public administration. Mrs Walson-Jack revealed a telling statistic: upon assuming office in August 2024, digital adoption across the service stood at only about 30 per cent, with just a handful of ministries operating partially paperless systems. The completion of the drive to 100% compliance within her tenure underscores a significant acceleration in the reform process.
