President Bola Tinubu has directed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to enrol every Nigerian in the national identity database before the end of 2026, the commission’s Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, says.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Coker-Odusote said the directive is part of the Federal Government’s plan to build a comprehensive national identity system to support governance, planning and service delivery.
“The President has given us till the end of this year to make sure that we capture every single Nigerian,” she said.
She said NIMC is working with partners under the World Bank-supported Identification for Development (ID4D) project to accelerate enrollment nationwide.
“What we have done is we have partnered through the World Bank ID4D project with front-end partners. They are part of the digital identity ecosystem. These are private citizens that we’ve enabled and given jobs to enrol citizens on our behalf,” she explained.
According to her, the National Identification Number serves as a unique identifier, ensuring that each individual is enrolled only once.
“That’s why it’s called a unique identifier, so that you’re only enrolled once,” she added.
Coker-Odusote said the exercise would also help determine Nigeria’s actual population, noting that current estimates range between 200 million and 250 million people.
“It is estimated that we’re 200 million. When we’re done enrolling, we will then know the actual numbers that we have. Some estimates say 230 million, while a few people say 250 million.
“Your identity is basically the foundation for effective governance and service delivery. How can you plan if you don’t know the total number of persons that you have? We have been mandated by Mr President to go down to the community levels to enrol every single Nigerian,” she said.
Multiple registration
Responding to concerns about multiple registrations, the NIMC boss said the commission’s biometric verification system prevents individuals from obtaining more than one identity.
She explained that while the previous system detected duplicate enrolments only after records had been submitted, the current system identifies and invalidates duplicates through biometric verification.
“The legacy system had no way of verifying at the front end whether you had already been captured. Once the record comes into the system, it flags it as a duplicate or that the person already exists in the database.
“You would only have one identity generated for you. The other record goes into a deduplication bucket where it is invalidated,” she said.
She added that biometric verification, including fingerprints and facial recognition, makes it virtually impossible for one person to maintain multiple identities.
“Absolutely. One of the things that this Act has done is to cement our role in capturing biometrics. Private and public sector organisations will no longer capture biometrics independently. They will validate identities through API integration with NIMC.
“The telcos are already doing that with us. If you need a SIM card, they capture your facial biometrics, which are matched against our database in real time to confirm that you are who you claim to be. We’re using biometric validation to tighten security around identity confirmation,” she said.
The remarks come weeks after President Tinubu signed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act 2026 into law on June 26, repealing the 2007 legislation.
The new law reinforces the “One Person, One Identity” policy by making the National Identification Number the country’s foundational identity credential for accessing government and essential private services, including banking, passport applications, tax administration, pensions, land transactions and consumer credit.
The PUNCH