By Ebere Agozie
Abuja, Dec. 21, 2025
President Bola Tinubu’s administration is fundamentally committed to reforming Nigeria’s justice sector to deliver timely, transparent, and citizen-driven outcomes, according to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN). This commitment was underscored with the official launch of a transformative Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) at the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja.
The launch, detailed in a statement by the Minister’s Senior Adviser on Media, Mr. Kamarudeen Ogundele, marks a decisive shift from a manual, paper-based bureaucracy to a digitally enabled institution. The ECMS is a comprehensive digital platform that allows for the creation, processing, approval, storage, and retrieval of all official documents electronically.
Fagbemi framed this technological upgrade as a critical governance reform, not just an IT project. “By digitalising our correspondences, emails, and legal documents, we are dismantling the bureaucratic bottlenecks that have historically slowed the wheels of justice,” he stated. He explained that these bottlenecks—lost files, sequential manual approvals, and physical storage limitations—have been significant contributors to the delays plaguing the justice system.
This initiative is strategically positioned within two key frameworks: the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu and the National Policy on Justice. It also directly fulfills Pillar 5 (Digitalisation) of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP25). “These frameworks are unequivocal: justice institutions must be efficient, accountable, digitally enabled, and capable of delivering timely outcomes to Nigerians,” Fagbemi reiterated.
The practical benefits of the ECMS extend far beyond mere convenience. Fagbemi highlighted its role in:
- Strengthening Institutional Memory: Digital records are secure, searchable, and permanent, preventing the loss of critical legal history and precedents.
- Enforcing Accountability and Discipline: Every action on a document—creation, edits, approvals, views—is logged, creating a transparent audit trail that clarifies responsibility and reduces procedural opacity.
- Improving Decision-Making: With instant access to complete case files and historical data, legal officers and policymakers can make more informed decisions faster.
“The ECMS is therefore not merely a technological intervention; it is a governance reform… This is the standard expected of a modern justice sector,” Fagbemi asserted.
Substantial groundwork has already been laid. In her welcome address, the Ministry’s representative, Mrs. Jeddy-Agba, revealed impressive pre-launch achievements: 6,241 physical files, comprising 331,297 pages, have been scanned and uploaded to the national 1Gov ECMS platform in just eight weeks. Furthermore, the Ministry has achieved 100% official email coverage for all staff, conducted extensive training, and established new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for digital workflows.
“For too long, service delivery in the ministry has been weighed down by challenges associated with managing physical documents… The ECMS ‘Go-Live’ ceremony we celebrate today marks the end of that era,” she said.
Fagbemi concluded by linking the digital transformation to broader human capital reforms, noting prioritization of staff welfare and workplace modernization to create an environment where excellence can thrive. He thanked key partners, including the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation and Prof. Koyinsola Ajayi, for their support in this foundational step toward a modern, efficient, and citizen-driven justice sector.
Edited by Sadiya Hamza
