Some stakeholders in Nigeria’s judiciary have emphasised the urgent need to digitise the legal and judicial sector to address long-standing inefficiencies hampering effective justice delivery.
Speaking at the 2025 Justice Innovation and Technology (JIT) Summit on Tuesday in Abuja, Mrs Lucy Abagi, CEO of the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), highlighted the persistent reliance on manual court processes.
She noted that the summit aimed to promote automation for timely and efficient justice.
Abagi said PPDC, with international backing, piloted the Justice Initiative in Nasarawa, Kaduna, and Plateau states, using speech-to-text devices to enhance case management.
She added that more than 80 per cent of Nigerian courts still operated manually, and the initiative was designed to eliminate this.
“The Judic AI software, developed by young Nigerian tech graduates, has already been deployed in 16 courtrooms.
“Judges no longer need to write long-hand; instead, they get instant transcriptions, which also lightens the administrative burden,” she said.
She added that the technology could help reduce Nigeria’s backlog of awaiting trial inmates, currently estimated at around 80,000.
Bemshima Peter, CEO of Devon Technologies Ltd., also spoke at the summit, stressing the need for technological adoption in a sector that had trailed behind others.
He described Judic AI as a smart transcription and case management solution, already operational in 16 courts.
In spite of challenges like diverse accents and dialects affecting speech recognition, Peter said the company was working on multilingual capabilities for seamless communication.
National President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr Afam Osigwe, urged judges to become computer literate and advocated for the integration of virtual hearings to reduce delays and unnecessary physical appearances in court.
“Courts should offer virtual hearing facilities to all parties, not just expect litigants to make personal arrangements,” Osigwe said, calling the refusal of some courts to adopt such systems “unacceptable.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Devon Technologies, a legal tech firm, is working to reshape Africa’s justice systems through digital transformation and accessibility.(NAN)
