By Danjuma Amodu
The Federal Civil Service in Nigeria has gone fully paperless, with all 33 Ministries and 5 Extra-Ministerial Departments (MENDs) switching to digital operations as of December 30, 2025. This marks a significant shift from paper-based bureaucracy to a modern, accountable, and digitally enabled public service.
The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack stated that “Citizens and businesses can now communicate with government entirely through digital channels, eliminating delays and inefficiencies of traditional paper processes,”
This transition started as part of reforms to digitise the Civil Service in 2017 under Mrs Winfred Eyo -Ita and given a boost under Dr. Folasade Yemi Esan, who introduced Enterprise Content Management (ECM) to give the digitalisation transformation a boost.
Walson-Jack’s administration expanded paperless operations from just three MEMDs to 38, creating over 100,000 official GovMail accounts for civil servants. “This ensures secure, auditable communication while saving billions of Naira annually,” she added.
She lauded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for his leadership and commended ministers, permanent secretaries, and technical teams for their roles in achieving the milestone.
Walson-Jack’s stressed the critical role of Galaxy Backbone in achieving this digital leap. “Galaxy Backbone Limited’s support was essential to the success of the 1Gov ECM rollout. Their institutional expertise and dedication made it possible to implement paperless operations at scale and meet the 31st December deadline.”
Similarly, She acknowledged the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITD) and other strategic partners for building the capacity of civil servants and the successful transition.
The Head of Service disclosed that the continuous Service-Wide Training-of-Trainers programme would be implemented in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which will commence in January 2026.
The training will be for officers across Ministries and MEMDs on digital tools like Service-Wise GPT, GovMail, and the Online Compendium of Federal Circulars to ensure sustainable adoption,” Walson-Jack added.
Walson-Jack reiterates that under the paperless system, the 38 Ministries and MEMDs will no longer accept physical submissions.
“All correspondence should now go to official registry email addresses, and citizens can track their submissions through the Federal Civil Service Paperless portal,”
This, according to her, will ensure faster responses, clearer audit trails, and greater transparency. ”The achievement ushers in a new era for Nigeria’s civil service, emphasizing efficiency, integrity, and accountability in service delivery in the public service of the Federation
