It used to be that your name, maybe your mother’s name, was enough to prove you existed. Today, you’ll need at least three government-issued identifiers to withdraw your money, register for a sim card, or even vote.
A Bank Verification Number (BVN) to open an account; a National Identification Number (NIN) to access public services; a Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) to perform your civic duty; and if you’re behind a wheel, a VIO clearance or risk fines. Now, even the NDLEA wants a biometric record.
Unlike many developed countries where identification systems are integrated and citizen data is protected by strong privacy laws, Nigeria’s identity space is fragmented and duplicative.
Countries like Estonia and Sweden use a single digital ID for banking, healthcare, and voting, while others like the UK, leveraging National Insurance Number, and the U.S. limit biometric collection and ensure data transparency.
In Nigeria, however, citizens must enrol separately for multiple IDs, usually submitting the same biometric data to different agencies with little coordination or oversight.
This lack of interoperability creates inefficiency and also exposes personal data to greater risks, without giving citizens control over how their information is used.
Welcome to Nigeria’s identity maze, where every agency wants your face, but none can protect or guarantee what happens to it. There is saturation without structure.
A Nation of IDs, Not Citizens
Nigeria’s identity industry is an administrative overgrowth. Thirteen major identity systems currently operate across the country, each usually overlapping, and rarely integrated.
As of July 2025, over 121 million Nigerians have registered for the NIN. But fewer than 60% of them enjoy reliable access to the public services that required registration in the first place.
The BVN, launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria and managed by NIBSS, has reached 64.8 million enrolments, despite Nigeria having over 231 million active bank accounts.
The logic behind BVN was straightforward; tie every account to a unique identity. Yet banking access in rural communities is still sporadic at best and exploitative at worst.
The problem isn’t a lack of data, it’s that the data isn’t working.
The Cost of Being Counted
Every agency now wants to scan your fingerprint, snap your photo, and save your biodata. But when Nigerians need help, from resolving SIM reactivation to correcting a simple name mismatch, they face endless queues, crashing systems, and opaque processes.
Between 2023 and 2025, more than 430 cases of identity mismatches were reported, many leading to lost access to funds or public benefits. Even more troubling, over 6,000 foreign nationals, mainly from Niger, were found in the NIN database, leading to both security concerns and doubts about data accuracy and oversight.
In contrast, the NDLEA has taken biometric data collection to a new level, establishing a registry of over 59,000 inmates while simultaneously reporting 14 million Nigerians as drug abuse victims. The question arises: is the growing pool of personal data being used to rehabilitate and support people or simply to monitor and catalogue them?
Where is the Protection?
Despite the enormous volume of sensitive data being collected, Nigeria’s Data Protection Act is still largely toothless. The NDPR, the earlier framework, was a step in the right direction, but enforcement has been inconsistent.
Citizens have no clear right to see, correct, or delete their own records. Inter-agency data sharing happens without transparency. Cybersecurity protocols are either absent or rudimentary.
We’re storing millions of records, but infrastructure is still vulnerable to basic breaches. Most systems lack end-to-end encryption. User passwords are often poorly protected. Some databases are hosted on outdated servers. It’s like building a bank vault with cardboard and asking citizens to trust it.
The Human Impact: A New Kind of Exclusion
When people are denied access to healthcare, banking, or education because their biometric records are “not found,” that’s not just a technical failure, but institutional abandonment.
People are being locked out of essential services simply because data silos don’t talk to each other, and there’s no central accountability.
The most vulnerable groups, those in rural areas, the elderly, and women in informal economies, are being excluded from a digital society that claims to be inclusive. The language of technology hides the truth: you can now be poor, invisible, and digitally invalid.
From Data Capture to Digital Control
There’s a deeper issue at play. Nigeria’s identity obsession is starting to look less like governance and more like control. Identity is no longer a right, it’s a barrier.
Government agencies claim they need these systems to improve service delivery, tackle crime, or manage welfare. But without integration, transparency, and security, what we have instead is a massive surveillance infrastructure, waiting to be abused.
We’re not just becoming citizens of a data state, we’re becoming profiles, without the power to decide how we’re represented or what happens to our information.
What Needs to Change?
Nigeria’s current course is unsustainable. We need more than another government committee or press release.
- A unified identity architecture must be built, where one ID can serve multiple purposes across verified agencies.
- Data security regulations must be enforced with real consequences for leaks or misuse.
- A fully empowered, independent Data Protection Authority should be in place to oversee how information is collected, stored, and shared.
- Citizens must be given data access rights, including the right to correct, challenge, or delete personal information.
- Most importantly, digital systems should enhance access, not deny it.
Conclusion: The Person Is the Point
We cannot continue to build an identity system where the data matters more than the people it’s meant to serve. Nigerians are not spreadsheets. We are not QR codes or fingerprints or poorly formatted PDFs. We are individuals who deserve dignity, privacy, and trust in our institutions.
Until the government stops treating digital identity as a checkbox and starts treating it as a responsibility, we will continue to live in a country where you exist only if the system agrees, and the system is sometimes wrong.
