President Bola Tinubu has directed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to complete national identity enrolment for every Nigerian before the end of 2026 as part of efforts to strengthen governance, national planning and public service delivery.
The directive was disclosed by NIMC Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, where she outlined the commission’s strategy for achieving nationwide registration.
According to Coker-Odusote, the Federal Government has mandated the commission to ensure that every Nigerian is captured in the national identity database before the deadline expires.
She explained that NIMC is working with private enrolment partners through the World Bank-supported Identification for Development (ID4D) project to accelerate national identity enrolment across the country. The initiative, she said, allows accredited partners within the digital identity ecosystem to register citizens on behalf of the commission, expanding access to identity services at the community level.
The NIMC boss said the National Identification Number (NIN) remains the country’s unique identity credential, ensuring that every individual can only be enrolled once. She noted that the identity system is designed to prevent duplicate registrations by assigning each person a single unique identity throughout their lifetime.
According to her, the nationwide enrolment exercise will also help establish Nigeria’s actual population, as current estimates range between 200 million and 250 million people. She added that having an accurate identity database would improve government planning, resource allocation and service delivery.
Addressing concerns over duplicate enrolments, Coker-Odusote said improvements to the biometric verification system now make it virtually impossible for individuals to obtain multiple identities. She explained that under the previous system, duplicate registrations were only detected after records had been submitted to the database.
However, the upgraded system now verifies fingerprints and facial biometrics at the point of registration, immediately identifying existing records and preventing additional identities from being created. According to her, duplicate records are automatically isolated and invalidated while only one valid identity remains active.
The NIMC Director-General also disclosed that the provisions of the new NIMC Act 2026 strengthen the commission’s responsibility for biometric identity management.
She explained that both government agencies and private organisations will now validate identities through secure Application Programming Interface (API) integration with NIMC instead of maintaining independent biometric databases. She cited telecommunications companies as an example, noting that facial biometrics collected during SIM registration are already verified against the commission’s database in real time.
The directive follows President Tinubu’s signing of the National Identity Management Commission Act 2026 into law on June 26, replacing the 2007 legislation. The new law reinforces the Federal Government’s One Person, One Identity policy by making the National Identification Number the primary identity credential for accessing essential government and private sector services, including banking, passport applications, tax administration, pensions, land transactions and consumer credit.
With the expanded national identity enrolment programme, the Federal Government says it aims to build a comprehensive identity database capable of supporting improved governance, national development planning and more efficient public service delivery.
