| By: Francis Onyemachi
The National Identity Management Commission says it has enrolled over 137 million Nigerians into the National Identification Number database, as President Bola Tinubu has directed the agency to complete nationwide enrolment by the end of 2026.
The disclosure was made by Dr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, the director-general and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, where she discussed the implementation of the amended NIMC Act and the role of digital identity in governance.
Coker-Odusote said 137,371,080 Nigerians had been enrolled as of Sunday evening, noting that millions of citizens are yet to register.
“As of this evening, we have enrolled 137,371,080 Nigerians.
“We still have a shortage because Nigeria’s population is estimated at 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,” she said.
She said President Tinubu had instructed the commission to take the enrolment exercise to communities across the country and ensure every Nigerian is registered before the end of 2026.
“We have been mandated by the President to go down to the community level to enrol every single Nigerian. He gave us till the end of next year, and we have partnered through the World Bank Identification for Development (ID4D) project and front-end partners who are part of the digital identity ecosystem to enrol citizens on our behalf,” she said.
Coker-Odusote described the NIN as Nigeria’s foundational identity system, adding that the amended NIMC Act makes it compulsory for every Nigerian citizen to obtain one.
“Your identity is basically the foundation for effective governance and service delivery. You cannot plan if you don’t know the number of persons that you have.”
She explained that the NIN is designed to give each individual a single, unique identity throughout their lifetime.
“That’s why it’s called a unique identifier, so that you’re only enrolled once,” she said.
On concerns about duplicate identities, the NIMC boss said the commission’s biometric verification system now detects and rejects multiple enrolments automatically, regardless of where a person registers or the names used.
According to her, only one valid identity is generated for each individual, while duplicate records are automatically flagged and invalidated.
“You would only have one identity generated for you. The other record goes into a deduplication bucket where it is invalidated,” she said.
Her comments come weeks after President Tinubu signed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act 2026 into law on June 26, replacing the 2007 Act and introducing a new legal framework for Nigeria’s digital identity system.
