The Director General, National Identity management commission (NIMC), Abisoye Coker-Odusote, has said that the commission is set to register 95% of Nigerians into the National Identity Database before December 2025.
She made this statement in Abuja, at a press briefing to highlight the commissions goal, which aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly on digital governance and inclusive development.
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.
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.
As of May 2025, NIMC reports over 120 million Nigerians have been enrolled, and about 100 million more would be captured by December. Coker-Odusote noted that the Commission is working assiduously to meet this target.
