Nigeria has overhauled the legal foundation of its national identity system, with President Bola Tinubu signing the NIMC Act 2026 into law. The legislation repeals the 2007 act that created the National Identity Management Commission and rewrites the commission’s mandate around digital identity, authentication, and electronic trust services for both government and the private sector.
The centerpiece of the new law is its designation of NIMC as the Root Certification Authority for Nigeria’s national Public Key Infrastructure and Digital Public Infrastructure. That role positions the commission as the trust anchor underpinning secure digital identity and authentication across public and private platforms, and the act further empowers it to enable interoperable data exchange among ministries, agencies, and private organizations.
The act reinforces the National Identification Number as the country’s foundational identity credential and enshrines a principle of one person, one identity. It formally recognizes both physical and digital credentials, each linked to a person’s NIN, and frames the NIMC General Multipurpose Card as a credential for nationwide verification. On data protection, the commission says the law introduces stronger safeguards aligned with the Nigeria Data Protection Act, and it prescribes tougher penalties for multiple registrations and identity-related fraud.
The reform also targets inclusion, introducing an identifier system for vulnerable people and mandating measures to enroll underserved groups, including those without permanent residences, alongside easier access for Nigerians in the diaspora. The commission cast the act as the most significant reform of the country’s identity-management framework since NIMC was established, and tied it to the government’s broader digital and economic agenda. It said the law modernizes a framework that had stood largely unchanged since 2007, when the rapid growth of digital services, electronic commerce, data-protection demands, and cybersecurity threats was far less advanced. The commission added that it would issue regulations and guidelines to implement the law in due course, working with government, the private sector, and development partners on the transition.
The new framework builds on a steady expansion of Nigeria’s identity infrastructure, from the commission’s NINAuth platform for digital identity verification to its move to make the National Identification Number mandatory for access to services. Nigeria has been enrolling citizens into the NIN database under a World Bank-supported program targeting 180 million people.
Sources: National Identity Management Commission
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
