Nigeria’s corporate registry says it can no longer approve a company registration unless the applicant’s identity is verified through the National Identity Management Commission’s verification infrastructure, tightening the identity checks behind the country’s business registration system.
The Corporate Affairs Commission is the federal agency that registers and regulates companies in Nigeria, while NIMC maintains the national identity database and issues the National Identification Number against which identities are checked. The Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, set out the position as NIMC’s director-general, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, visited the registry as part of a round of working visits to government agencies. Magaji said the prohibition follows from the newly enacted NIMC Act 2026, read alongside the CAC’s own regulatory mandate.
The NIMC Act 2026 recast the commission around digital trust, making it Nigeria’s foundational digital identity authority and adding provisions on data protection, cybersecurity, digital public infrastructure, and public key infrastructure. Verification runs against the National Identification Number, the unique number issued to each enrolled person and held in the national identity database. NIMC has separately been expanding its own authentication tooling, launching the NINAuth platform for digital identity verification.
Magaji described the partnership between the two agencies as essential to the integrity, credibility, and security of corporate registration, and said continued integration of NIMC’s digital identity system would strengthen due diligence, curb identity fraud, and build confidence in Nigeria’s business registration framework. Company registries are a recurring target for fraud. A company incorporated in a false or stolen name can be used to open bank accounts, bid for public contracts, or move money through a shell entity, which is why registries increasingly check directors against a national identity database before a filing is approved.
Both agencies framed the engagement as reinforcing inter-agency collaboration and the federal government’s aim of a more secure, transparent, and digitally enabled business environment in Nigeria. The visit is one of several Coker-Odusote has made to ministries, departments, and agencies, as NIMC presses to widen the use of verified identity across Nigerian public services and to tie more of them to the national identity database.
Sources: NIMC
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
