SAMANTHA MADE
For years, fragmented identity records in Nigeria made it difficult for citizens to access public services and for government agencies to verify who was receiving them. People repeatedly submitted the same information for passports, bank accounts and other services, while disconnected databases created room for delays, duplication and non-existent beneficiaries.
Nigeria is now using an expanded national digital identity system to address those weaknesses, connecting verified identities to education, healthcare, financial services, social protection, taxation and passport issuance.
Explaining the wider purpose of the system, Nigeria’s Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Senator Ibrahim Hassan Hadeja, said digital identity had become central to public participation.
“Digital identity is no longer simply about establishing who we are,” Hadeja said. “It has increasingly become the foundation through which citizens access public services, participate in the digital economy, benefit from financial inclusion and engage meaningfully with governments and their institutions.”
National Identification Number enrolment has surpassed 142 million records, giving Nigeria what officials describe as Africa’s largest identity database.
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has established more than 8,000 enrolment centres across the country and trained over 32,000 agents. Its diaspora network extends to 98 countries through 1,167 centres across six continents.
A ward-level initiative has taken registration into communities that previously had no enrolment facilities. More than 6,700 of Nigeria’s 8,809 wards have been visited, leading to 10 million registrations within six months.
Acknowledging that registration remained incomplete, NIMC Coordinating Director of Operations Uche Nwachibor said the next phase would concentrate on excluded communities.
“The millions who remain outside the system are our next responsibility,” Nwachibor said. “The communities that are in hard-to-reach areas are our next frontier.”
Connecting identity to services
Nigeria has begun integrating its identity system with mobile phone registration, taxation, passports, pensions, examinations, company registration, health insurance and social interventions.
Nearly 1.9 million record changes are being processed through a self-service platform, reducing turnaround times for corrections to between 24 and 48 hours. Identity verification has reached about 3.3 million transactions a day.
The integration is intended to replace repeated registration across public institutions with a reusable, verified identity.
Describing the previous system, Hadeja said citizens often provided similar information to several agencies when applying for passports, opening bank accounts or accessing other services.
“You now have one central depository,” Hadeja said. “With the identity issue resolved, from a service-delivery perspective, the public sector knows where you are. They can reach out to you, they can offer services and you can complain about the kind of services you are getting.”
Nigeria is also linking civil registration with the identity system so that children can receive identification numbers at birth.
Tracking learners, protecting benefits
Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, said the absence of reliable identity information had made it difficult to address out-of-school children, examination malpractice and fraudulent certificates.
The government has created a learner identification number linked to the National Identification Number to track children throughout their education. Nearly 45 million learners have been added to a digital education management system, against a target of about 70 million.
Explaining how the records could support vulnerable learners, Minister Alausa said authorities would be able to identify children leaving the education system.
“We could see when they drop off,” Minister Alausa said. “We’re now going to use that to build up a social protection pathway to support them.”
Biometric verification is also being incorporated into tertiary education entrance examinations to confirm candidates’ identities and prevent people from writing examinations on behalf of others.
Student loans are linked to verified identities, enabling authorities to confirm beneficiaries and follow their progress. The identity system is also being used in school-feeding and cash-transfer programmes to reduce duplication and prevent benefits from being claimed through non-existent recipients.
NIMC Director-General Abisoye Coker-Odusote said reliable identification could strengthen accountability in public assistance programmes.
“How do we ensure that there are no duplications in terms of beneficiaries?” Coker-Odusote said. “How can we ensure transparency and accountability to our citizens in that process?”
Opening access to health, banking
Nigeria has linked National Identification Numbers to health insurance records, tax information and credit data.
Coker-Odusote said the integration was intended to bring together databases that had previously operated separately.
“We’re trying to use the NIN to make sure that we integrate every single database that has been in silos,” she said.
Reliable verification is also reducing the cost and time required by financial institutions and technology companies to identify customers.
Flutterwave co-founder and chief executive Olugbenga Agboola said onboarding businesses had previously been cumbersome and expensive because companies depended on separate identity-verification services.
“With the NIN infrastructure, it is now simple and seamless,” Agboola said. “That helps you give customers simplified onboarding and access to services.”
Inclusion depends on trust
The growing use of digital identity also raises questions about privacy, data security and consent. NIMC says its mobile authentication system allows citizens to control who can access their information through consent-based disclosure.
Nwachibor said that control should remain with the individual.
“The citizens, not the state, decide who sees their data,” she said.
Reaching the remaining unregistered population may be more difficult because many live in remote communities, have limited literacy or use basic mobile phones.
Data Science Nigeria founder Bayo Adekomi said enrolment centres would need to help people resolve inconsistencies in their records, while technology should reflect users’ circumstances.
“The problem with data starts at the point of collection,” Adekomi said. “Expanded quality that is inclusive, intentionally embracing the reality of everyday people, irrespective of their literacy, educational level or where they are, becomes more important.”
World Bank Practice Manager for Digital Public Infrastructure Stella Makan said digital services should be organised around people’s needs rather than government institutions.
“The priority is how you help deliver services not around government ministries, but around people’s life events — birth certificates, opening a business, getting a diploma and anything you need from government in an easy, cheaper, seamless manner,” Makan said.
The speakers were participating in a discussion titled The Digital Public Ecosystem: Identity, Trust and Inclusive Access in the Digital Economy, held in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
