The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that it has intensified its plans to collaborate with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) on voter identity management and database systems in Nigeria.
The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, stated this when the management of the National Identity Management Commission paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
Professor Yakubu said that the Commission has engaged with NIMC at different times with the intention of solidifying their partnership in the area of identity management system.
“As is well known, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) holds the database of citizens for the purpose of elections while NIMC has the record of citizens generally. Together, our two agencies hold the largest biometric databases of citizens in Nigeria,” he said.
The INEC Chairman noted that since the ultimate goal is to enroll every citizen with NIMC, they look forward to the day when their database will serve as the single source of truth for citizenship identification in Nigeria.
“When the time comes, the national register of voters may simply draw from the citizenship register as is the case in many jurisdictions around the world.
“This may also enable citizens to vote in future elections from their places of choice anywhere in the country rather than the places they register as voters as is the case at present. To achieve this long-term goal, we will continue to deepen our collaboration with NIMC,” Professor Yakubu stated.
He explained that it is in furtherance of the collaboration that NIMC is deploying its officials to some of INEC’s registration centres during the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), saying that the idea is to provide more Nigerians who are yet to enroll for the National Identification Number (NIN) the opportunity to do so.
“Working with NIMC, we carried out a pilot during the recent CVR in Anambra State from 8th to 20th July 2025. We are now set to scale it up nationwide. Citizens will therefore have the opportunity to register as voters while simultaneously registering for the NIN,” he said.
He added that in due course, NIMC will provide details of the locations of their CVR centres where it will deploy its officials and also provide the modalities for the NIN registration.
Director General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Engineer Abisoye Coker Odusote, said their visit to INEC was to seek stronger collaboration on how to improve and strengthen the country’s electoral processes through a robust database system.
Engineer Coker Odusote assured them that NIMC was ready to provide the needed support for effective collaboration with INEC to give Nigerians the desired result in electoral processes.
She, however, stressed that the issue of effective electoral process management should not be left to INEC alone but must involve the collaborative efforts of all election stakeholders in the country
