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, improve national planning and enhance public service delivery.

The directive was disclosed by the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme.

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According to her, the Federal Government is intensifying efforts to build a comprehensive digital identity system that will provide accurate demographic data and support effective policy implementation across the country.

Coker-Odusote said the commission is partnering with private enrolment agents through the World Bank-supported Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative to speed up the registration process nationwide.

She explained that the initiative allows accredited front-end partners within the digital identity ecosystem to enrol citizens on behalf of the commission, expanding access to registration services across communities.

“The President has given us till the end of this year to make sure that we capture every single Nigerian,” she said.

“What we have done is partner through the World Bank ID4D project with front-end partners. These are private organisations that we’ve empowered to enrol citizens on our behalf.”

She noted that the National Identification Number (NIN) remains a unique identifier assigned to every individual and serves as the foundation of Nigeria’s digital identity framework.

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The NIMC chief said the nationwide registration exercise would also provide a more accurate picture of Nigeria’s population, which currently relies on varying estimates.

She observed that population figures often quoted for the country range between 200 million and 250 million, making comprehensive enrolment essential for reliable planning.

“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,” she stated.

According to her, a reliable national identity database is critical for effective governance because it enables government institutions to plan and allocate resources based on verified data.

“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 added.

Addressing concerns over multiple registrations, Coker-Odusote said NIMC’s upgraded biometric verification system prevents individuals from obtaining more than one identity.

She explained that while the commission’s previous platform could only detect duplicate enrolments after records had been submitted, the new system verifies biometric information at the point of registration.

“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,” she explained.

She added that duplicate records are automatically invalidated, ensuring that each individual is assigned only one National Identification Number.

“You would only have one identity generated for you. The other record goes into a deduplication bucket where it is invalidated,” she said.

Coker-Odusote also disclosed that recent reforms have strengthened NIMC’s role as the country’s central biometric verification authority.

She said public and private organisations would no longer maintain separate biometric databases but would instead validate identities through direct integration with NIMC’s system.

According to her, telecommunications companies have already adopted the framework, allowing customer biometric data to be verified instantly before SIM cards are issued.

“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,” she said.

She added that the commission would continue deploying biometric verification technologies, including fingerprint and facial recognition, to strengthen identity management, improve security and reduce identity fraud across the country.