President Bola Tinubu has signed a new law, the NIMC Act 2026, replacing the original 2007 statute, and has ordered the National Identity Management Commission to capture every last citizen by the end of the year.
More than 137 million Nigerians and legal residents are now enrolled in the National Identity database, up from roughly 117 million barely a year and a half ago, reflecting accelerating progress on the long delayed identity project.
The new legislation is expected to strengthen the legal and institutional framework underpinning Nigeria’s digital identity infrastructure, which has increasingly become a requirement for banking, telecommunications and other government services.
Officials describe the year end enrolment target as an ambitious deadline for a country whose actual population remains a matter of estimates rather than confirmed fact, with figures ranging between 200 million and 250 million.
A comprehensive identity system is expected to help settle longstanding questions about Nigeria’s true population size, while enabling more effective government planning and service delivery across sectors.
The NIMC is expected to intensify enrolment drives across the country in the coming months as it works toward the presidential directive to capture the remaining unenrolled population by year end.
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