Tinubu Orders NIMC to Enrol All Nigerians Before End of 2026
President Bola Tinubu has directed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure that every Nigerian is enrolled in the National Identity Database before the end of 2026 as part of efforts to strengthen governance, planning and service delivery across the country.
The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, disclosed this during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, saying the directive underscores the Federal Government’s commitment to building a comprehensive and reliable national identity system.
“The President has given us till the end of this year to make sure that we capture every single Nigerian,” Coker-Odusote said.
She explained that the commission is working with partners under the World Bank-supported Identification for Development (ID4D) project to accelerate nationwide enrolment through accredited front-end partners.
“We have partnered through the World Bank ID4D project with front-end partners who are part of the digital identity ecosystem. These are private organisations that have been empowered to enrol citizens on our behalf,” she stated.
According to her, the National Identification Number (NIN) remains a unique identifier designed to ensure that every Nigerian is enrolled only once, thereby eliminating duplicate identities.
The NIMC boss noted that the nationwide enrolment exercise would also enable the government to determine Nigeria’s actual population, saying estimates currently range between 200 million and 250 million people.
“Your identity is the foundation for effective governance and service delivery. How can you plan if you don’t know the total number of people you have? We have been mandated by Mr President to go down to the community level and enrol every single Nigerian,” she said.
Addressing concerns over multiple registrations, Coker-Odusote explained that the commission’s upgraded biometric verification system now detects duplicate enrolments at the point of registration, unlike the previous system, which only identified duplicates after records had been submitted.
She added that biometric verification through fingerprints and facial recognition has made it virtually impossible for an individual to maintain multiple identities within the national database.
“Private and public sector organisations will no longer capture biometrics independently. They will validate identities through API integration with NIMC. Telecommunications companies are already doing this by matching facial biometrics against our database in real time before activating SIM cards,” she explained.
The directive follows President Tinubu’s assent to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act, 2026, on June 26, which repealed the 2007 Act and reinforced the Federal Government’s “One Person, One Identity” policy.
Under the new law, the National Identification Number becomes Nigeria’s foundational identity credential for accessing critical public and private sector services, including banking, passport applications, tax administration, pension services, land transactions and consumer credit.