In a move that underscores the country’s growing commitment to leveraging technology for governance reform, Nigeria has announced the finalists for JusticeTechNG 2025, a national hackathon and accelerator program focused exclusively on justice innovation.
Set to take place from June 3 to 5, 2025 in Lagos, the Hackathon will bring together developers, lawyers, technologists, civic actors, and entrepreneurs to co-create digital solutions that address persistent gaps in Nigeria’s justice sector—from delayed access and court congestion to prisoner rehabilitation, digital legal education, and rights awareness.
The initiative is convened by Fernandez Marcus-Obiene, Special Assistant to the President on Justice Sector Reform and ICT/Digital and Innovative Technology, and supported by a multi-disciplinary planning committee chaired by Abiola Jimoh, a legal technologist and policy strategist.
Together, they have assembled a platform that is part competition, part policy experiment, and part innovation pipeline.
From an open national call, 82 submissions were received and reviewed under a multi-stage selection process. After an initial screening for relevance and eligibility, a panel of 14 evaluators from law, technology, development, and the private sector independently scored the applications. Every submission was reviewed by at least two assessors, with final selection based on average rankings and confirmed availability of the teams.
The evaluation panel reflected both depth and diversity, including Yetunde Braimoh-Habeebu (Total Data Limited), Temitayo Ismail (Vassaicrest Attorneys), Yusuf Olalere (Greenberg Traurig LLP), Sunday Kenechukwu Agwu (Public and Private Development Centre), Amanda Etuk (Cascador Nigeria), Tope Plofin (One and Zeros), Kelechi Achinonu (Techlawyered), Sulaiman Balogun (PropertyPro.ng), and Ahmed Idris (Enovate Lab), among others.
The 20 teams selected span a wide range of proposed solutions—from platforms for legal access in underserved communities to case-tracking systems for courts, reintegration tools for ex-inmates, and technology for real-time civic justice reporting.
Providing strategic oversight for the initiative is a high-level Advisory Board, comprising some of the most respected voices across law, government, business, and tech.
These include Hon. Justice Kashim Zannah OFR, Chief Judge of Borno State and Chair of the NJC Judicial Information Technology Committee; Tunde Fagbohunlu, SAN, Senior Partner at Aluko & Oyebode; Dr. Babatunde Ajibade, SAN, Managing Partner at SPA Ajibade & Co; Michael Jonathan Numa, SAN, of M.J. Numa & Partners; Adeola Olumeyan, Regional General Counsel for Junior Achievement Africa; Chika Nwosu, Managing Director of PalmPay; Evbu Igbinedion, Executive Secretary of the Administration of Criminal Justice Monitoring Committee; Ope Olugasa, MD of Law Pavilion; Simon Melchior, MD of Axendit; and Okezie Tochukwu, Company Secretary at Interswitch Group. Also on the board is Ijeoma Nwafor, Nigeria Country Representative for the Hague Institute for Innovation in Law (HiiL), and Sam Orji, Head of Strategy at Kredimoney.
According to Marcus-Obiene, the vision is simple but ambitious: “We’re building a pipeline of justice innovations that are locally grown, policy-aligned, and ready for real-world adoption. If we want the justice system to work better, we must start investing in the people building tools to fix it.”
At the end of the Hackathon, the top 10 teams will proceed into a month-long virtual Accelerator Program, followed by a Demo Day where winners will pitch their solutions before a panel of stakeholders, including government officials, judges, development agencies, and potential investors. A total of N22 million in cash and services will be awarded to the top three teams, alongside structured mentorship and post-event support.
JusticeTechNG is widely seen as a new model for public-private-civic collaboration on reform. It blurs the lines between policy development, entrepreneurship, and grassroots problem-solving, while placing technology at the centre of the justice conversation.
With the countdown to June now underway, the 20 finalists represent more than just competing teams. They are, in many ways, early architects of what the future of justice in Nigeria—and potentially Africa—could look like.
