The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) are set to scale up their collaboration to register more Nigerians for the National Identification Number (NIN) nationwide.
According to Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the partnership aims to provide citizens with the opportunity to register as voters while simultaneously registering for the NIN.
The Chairman stated this when he received a delegation from the National Identity Management Commission(NIMC) led by Bisoye Coker-Odusote, the Director-General.
Mahmood said, “INEC and NIMC have a long-standing collaboration in the area of identity management.
“The two agencies hold the largest biometric databases of citizens in Nigeria, with INEC managing the National Register of Voters and NIMC managing the National Identity Database”
He recalled that the two agencies had conducted the pilot programme in Anambra State from July 8 to 28, 2025, where NIMC officials were deployed to INEC registration centres to enroll citizens for NIN while registering as voters.
“The success of this pilot has led to the decision to scale up the program nationwide”, he added.
He said the partnership would enable citizens to register as voters and obtain NIN simultaneously, provide proof of citizenship identification and potentially vote in future elections from any location in the country.
The INEC Chairman added that the NIMC would provide details of the locations of the registration centres and the modalities for NIN registration.
The partnership is expected to strengthen electoral activities and elections in Nigeria.
But, Bisoye Coker-Odusote, NIMC Director-General, said the partnership is in line with the mandate of the Commission.
“We are to ensure integration and harmonization of all data across all the MDAs”, she said, noting that a lot of MDAs had been running in silos in terms of having siloed data. “But right now we are all coming together and the aim is to ensure that NIMC is the only single source of truth.”
“In this collaboration with INEC, INEC is a board member, and we have been working hand-in-hand towards ensuring that we provide one thing that would not be easily misconstrued in Nigeria’s trust.
“We want to ensure we work hand-in-hand to make sure that we have trust-based systems that will be very beneficial to Nigerians, especially across board. So when it comes to enabling access to services, including areas of voting, we want to ensure that there’s transparency, accountability, and fairness across board”, she added.
She said the INEC Chairman has been in the system for long and he has been a great support to the system in driving the Federal Government’s agenda forward on “how we make Nigerians happy, because that’s our number one goal, making sure all citizens are happy.
“Beyond bringing back money on data collection, Nigeria is also looking at a time where they can use one card to vote, to do several things, which your commission is also charged with responsibility”.
She said the process is ongoing and work-in-progress across board, adding that “Nothing is instant, and we’re working on making sure we get there, but the end goal is to arrive at that. And we are working very fast on ensuring that we’re able to achieve this.”
