Odimmegwa Johnpeter/Abuja
In a determined bid to deepen collaboration between the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, on Wednesday September 3rd, 2025 played host to Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, Director-General National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), at the electoral Commission’s national headquarters in Abuja.
The collaboration between INEC and NIMC will provide opportunities for Nigerians to register as voters while simultaneously registering for the NIN.
According to Prof. Yakubu, the collaboration is a decisive step since INEC holds the database of citizens for the purpose of elections while NIMC has the record of citizens generally.
Prof. Yakubu noted that the two agencies hold the largest biometric databases of citizens in Nigeria which INEC wanted to leverage on with the deployment of NIMC officials to some of its registration centres during the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).
He stressed that the idea is to provide more Nigerians who are yet to enrol for the National Identification Number (NIN) the opportunity to do so.
Prof. Yakubu also stated that the Commission will scale up nationwide its pilot survey during the recent CVR in Anambra State.
His words: “In due course, NIMC will provide details of the locations of our CVR centres where it will deploy its officials and also provide the modalities for the NIN registration.
“We welcome this partnership with NIMC, which is in keeping with our commitment to synergise with every national institution to strengthen electoral activities in Nigeria.
“Since the ultimate goal is to enrol every citizen with NIMC, we look forward to the day when your database will serve as the single source of truth for citizenship identification in Nigeria”.
To achieve this long-term goal, Prof. Yakubu said INEC will continue to deepen collaboration with NIMC.
Speaking earlier, Coker-Odusote emphasized that the collaboration with INEC is geared towards building a unified identity database for the country.
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