The Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) and 10 ministries collectively plan to spend a total of N2,463,596,694 on papers and other office materials in 2026, even after they have gone paperless.

That figure is N731,853,324, or 42.3 per cent, higher than the N1,731,743,370 they spent in 2025.Last year, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) rolled out the 1Gov Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) to fast-track Nigeria’s shift to a paperless, digitally driven public service.

The initiative was said to be a key plank of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP 2025).

By 31 December 2025, the Head of Service, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, announced that all 38 ministries and extra‑ministerial departments were operating digitally and that any physical paper submissions are no longer accepted in registries.

Part of the objectives of the new digitalisation is to curb the huge sums of money spent on papers and other office consumables.

However, an analysis of the 2026 budget proposal submitted to the National Assembly by the President shows that the country is far from achieving these savings from stationery.

For example, the Head of the Civil Service, which championed the digital migration, proposed to spend N300,875,037 on stationery in 2026, a figure that is N101,104,700, or 84.4 per cent, above what it spent in 2025.

In the same vein, the Ministry of Defence, which spent N350,572,345 in 2025 on stationery, proposed to spend N638,041,668 in 2026.

This figure is an increase of 82 per cent.Similarly, the Ministry of Justice, which spent N125,000,000 on papers in 2025, plans to spend N525,000,000 in 2026, an increase of N400,000,000, or 320 per cent.

The Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning increased its budget for stationery from N90,000,000 in 2025 to N117,000,000 in 2026.

The Ministry of Police Affairs also increased its budget for stationery from N45,450,000 in 2025 to N60,467,848 in 2026.

Out of the 10 ministries analysed, it is only the Ministry of Women Affairs that cut down its budget for stationery from N138,468,547 in 2025 to N40,000,000 in 2026.

Five other ministries, including Agriculture and Food Security, Communication and Digital Economy, Foreign Affairs, Education, and Environment, simply copied and pasted their stationery budgets of N67,248,931, N45,963,437, N463,582,744, N100,187,029, and N105,500,000 respectively from 2025 to 2026.

It has been observed that MDAs’ spending on stationery over the years has become a major drain on the government purse.

It is estimated that the entire public sector in Nigeria spends about N50 billion annually on paper and allied accessories.

In 2024, only 10 ministries, including Finance, Defence, and Foreign Affairs among others, collectively spent N969.37 million on stationery alone.

This figure jumped to N1.52 billion in 2025.It was to check this drain on government revenue that the federal government initiated the digital transformation system under the 1Gov Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS).

The Enterprise Content Management System, according to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, was designed, apart from reducing the revenue spent on stationery, to also speed up workflow in ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs), boost transparency and efficiency, cut waste, and encourage MDAs to share documents seamlessly.

“It is a cultural shift — moving from ‘file‑walking’ to real‑time digital decision‑making,” the Head of Service described the new system.