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, according to Abisoye Coker-Odusote, director general and chief executive officer of the agency.

Abisoye Coker-Odusote, director general and chief executive officer, NIMC

Coker-Odusote, who appeared on Channels Television, said the directive forms part of the federal government’s efforts to establish a comprehensive national identity system capable of supporting effective governance, planning, and service delivery.

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

According to her, NIMC is working with partners under the World Bank-supported Identification for Development (ID4D) project to accelerate nationwide enrolment.

“What we have done is we have partnered through the World Bank ID4D project with front-end partners. They are part of the digital identity ecosystem. These are private citizens that we’ve enabled and given jobs to enrol citizens on our behalf,” she explained.

She stressed that the National Identification Number (NIN) remains a unique identifier, ensuring that every individual is registered only once.

Advertisement

“That’s why it’s called a unique identifier, so that you’re only enrolled once,” the NIMC DG added.

Coker-Odusote said Nigeria’s actual population remains uncertain, with estimates ranging from 200 million to 250 million, making a comprehensive identity database essential for national 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.

“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 said.

Responding to concerns about whether an individual could obtain multiple identities by registering in different locations or under different names, the NIMC boss said the commission’s biometric verification system prevents such occurrences.

Advertisement

She explained that while the previous system could accept duplicate enrolments before detecting them later, the current process automatically identifies and invalidates multiple registrations.

“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.

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

The NIMC DG added that biometric verification, including fingerprints and facial recognition, makes it virtually impossible for one person to maintain multiple identities.

“Absolutely. One of the things that this Act has done is to cement our role in capturing biometrics. Private and public sector organisations will no longer capture biometrics independently. They will validate identities through API integration with NIMC.

Advertisement

“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. We’re using biometric validation to tighten security around identity confirmation,” she said.

The remarks come weeks after Tinubu signed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act 2026 into law on June 26, repealing the 2007 legislation.

The new law reinforces the “One Person, One Identity” policy by making the NIN the country’s foundational identity credential for accessing government and essential private services, including banking, passport applications, tax administration, pensions, land transactions, and consumer credit.

It also introduces stiffer penalties for identity theft, multiple registrations and unauthorised access to personal identity data, while strengthening data privacy protections and granting NIMC wider powers to investigate identity-related offences.

Advertisement

Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) Limited, a premier economic think-tank and financial advisory firm, led by Bismarck Rewane, has reported that Nigerians have accumulated an estimated $59 billion in cryptocurrency holdings.

Bismarck Rewane

According to data released by the firm highlights the country’s emergence as one of Africa’s and the world’s major players in digital assets.

The earlier disclosure reflects a profound shift in Nigeria’s financial landscape.

In Africa’s largest economy, crypto has moved from a fringe activity to a mainstream tool amid persistent inflation and naira volatility.

Citizens and businesses are increasingly turning to dollar-pegged stablecoins and decentralised platforms, building a parallel financial system with significant economic influence.

Nigeria continues to rank among global leaders in adoption.

Advertisement

According to Chainalysis’ 2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index, the country placed second worldwide for grassroots adoption, driven by widespread use in everyday transactions and cross-border commerce.

Despite these impressive statistics, a notable contradiction remains in public perception.

While stocks, real estate, mutual funds, and foreign currency are openly discussed, many Nigerians still approach cryptocurrency with caution, often downplaying their involvement.

Crypto assets, or cryptocurrencies, are digital assets utilizing cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, and distributed ledger technologies (like blockchains) to secure, verify, and record transactions.

Unlike traditional fiat currencies issued by central banks, these assets operate without central intermediaries, functioning globally as alternative stores of value or transactional mediums.

Advertisement

Nearpays, Nigerian fintech, has won the AI for Good Innovation Factory grand finale — the first African startup ever to take the global title in the competition, which runs as part of the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit.

The competition drew more than 500 startups worldwide, each pitching AI solutions aimed at social and economic challenges.

The summit itself is organised by the UN through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in partnership with several UN agencies, convening governments, researchers, startups, and technology companies around AI’s role in development.

Nearpays’ route to the title ran through Johannesburg, where it won the African regional competition, before advancing to the global finals in Geneva.

There, the company progressed through the semi-finals and claimed the grand finale — a first for the continent.

Advertisement

The company describes the win as bigger than a corporate milestone, calling it a victory for African innovation and proof that technology built to solve local problems can compete, and win, on the world stage.

Nearpays was founded to close a stubborn gap in African payments: small and medium-sized businesses that can’t afford or access traditional point-of-sale terminals.

Cost, availability, and deployment hurdles have kept many merchants — particularly in rural and underserved communities — locked out of digital payments.

Its answer is SoftPOS: an AI-powered platform that turns compatible Android smartphones into payment acceptance devices, letting merchants take contactless card payments with nothing more than their phones. AI is embedded across the platform, supporting payment processing, compliance, fraud detection, and business operations.

Crucially, the platform was built for African infrastructure realities — it works both online and offline, so merchants can keep accepting payments even without internet connectivity.

Advertisement

The company credited its team’s years of product development and customer engagement for the result, and thanked the UN, the ITU, and the AI for Good initiative for building a platform where innovators can apply AI to real-world problems.

It also said it hopes the win encourages more African founders to build technology that answers local needs while competing internationally.

For Nearpays, the title closes one chapter and opens another, as the company pushes on with expanding digital financial infrastructure across Afric