The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has enrolled more than 137 million Nigerians into the National Identification Number (NIN) database as President Bola Tinubu directed the commission to ensure every Nigerian is registered before the end of 2026.
The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, disclosed this on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, where she spoke on the newly signed NIMC Act and its implications for Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem.
According to her, 137,371,080 Nigerians had been enrolled in the NIN database as of Sunday evening, although millions remain unregistered based on estimates of the country’s population.
“As of this evening, we have enrolled 137,371,080 Nigerians,” she said.
“We still have a shortage because Nigeria’s population is estimated at about 200 million, while some estimates put it at 230 million or even 250 million. When we finish enrolling everyone, we’ll know the actual figure.”
Coker-Odusote said President Tinubu had directed the commission to complete the nationwide enrolment exercise before the end of 2026.
“The President has given us until the end of this year to make sure that we capture every single Nigerian,” she said.
To achieve the target, she said NIMC had expanded enrolment beyond local government offices to wards and communities through partnerships under the World Bank-supported Identification for Development (ID4D) project.
She explained that the commission had engaged private sector front-end partners to bring registration services closer to citizens across the country.
“We have partnered through the World Bank ID4D project with front-end partners. They are part of the digital identity ecosystem, and they are enrolling citizens on our behalf at the community level,” she said.
Coker-Odusote stressed that under the amended NIMC Act, obtaining a National Identification Number is now mandatory for every Nigerian, describing the NIN as the country’s foundational identity system.
