The Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Abisoye Coker-Odusote, has declared the agency’s ambitious plan to register 95% of Nigerians into the National Identity Database before December 2025.
Speaking during a briefing in Abuja, Coker-Odusote said the goal aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly on digital governance and inclusive development.
According to her, the mass enrollment drive will be powered by a combination of improved infrastructure, expanded registration centres, and robust public sensitization campaigns.
“What we have done in this regard is that we will commence the Ward Enrollment Exercise to capture at least 95% of Nigerians before December, year end,” she said.
As of May 2025, NIMC reports over 85 million Nigerians have been enrolled, but this figure still falls short of the estimated population of over 220 million. Coker-Odusote noted that the Commission is working assiduously to meet this target.
The NIMC boss asserted that the ongoing Ward Enrollment Exercise when completed will allow the government to know the actual number of Nigerians and this makes it easy to plan effectively for the citizens.
Addressing the issue of public trust, and data security, Coker-Odusote said it is expected that people might have some trust issues, however, the commission has taken several steps to ensure Nigerians can trust that their data is in safe hands.
According to her, one of the things NIMC has done to build trust is to put back the data in the hands of the people, giving them control over their own data with interventions like the NIN Authentication which includes user consent management that enables individuals access their data and choose when and how they would like to share the data for any service required.
She adds that another thing the agency has done is to partner with security agencies who are working tirelessly to be able to address and arrest all those who create fake NIN websites.
Also, there is a partnership between NIMC, and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) to train all staff who will be handling data, especially the enrolment officers.
“We want to make sure that they all get certified by Data Protection, I think its also another way to ensure that internally they get certified and all of our frontend partners and verification partners are also getting certified by the Data Protection Commission; so this is for us to foster trust, to be able to ensure you know that the people handling your data are also certified experts,” she buttressed.
She further revealed that NIMC has strengthened its cybersecurity from the backend to make sure there is no intrusion and no one can have access to people’s data.
Projecting into the future, Coker-Odusote said NIMC is working to ensure all the ministries, departments and agencies in Nigeria do not operate in silos anymore.
“We have been working with very hard on integrating with all ministries, departments and agencies based on used cases that we’ve identified under their jurisdiction,” she noted.
The NIMC DG also revealed that the commission wants to launch its “Public Key Infrastructure” which builds trust especially within the MDAs.
She envisions a no distant time in which ministries, departments and agencies will be able to use digital signing across board, and seamlessly exchange documents not only within an agency but between various establishments, thereby ushering in the e-government upon which the digital economy will thrive.
