…Banks, Telcos, immigration, still do silo data registrations

…Confirmation protocol with NIN not same as unified database

By Juliet Umeh

The Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, has declared that Nigeria has moved beyond the era of fragmented identity databases.

However, the reality on ground appears to contradict that claim as many Nigerians recount having to fill out long forms in their attempts to obtain or renew international passports, driver’s licenses or even tax clearances.

Coker-Odusote claims that the National Identification Number, NIN, has become the country’s master identity linking records across government and the private sector.

Speaking during the ID4Africa Annual General Meeting in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and in a subsequent interview with Vanguard, Coker-Odusote said NIMC has integrated key government databases based on their respective use cases, making the NIN the country’s master identity while linking sector-specific identifiers such as the Bank Verification Number, BVN, to a common national identity infrastructure.

“We no longer have fragmented databases in place because we have been able to integrate based on use cases,” she said.

According to her, agencies responsible for taxation, immigration, education, healthcare, security, aviation and social intervention programmes now rely on the NIN as the common identity layer, while banks, telecommunications companies, insurance firms and fintechs authenticate customers through NIMC’s real-time verification platform.

She explained that the NIN serves as the master identity across sectors, while sector-specific identifiers continue to perform specialised functions.

“The NIN is the master ID, which means your sectoral ID only works for that sector like BVN only works for the financial sector. However, the NIN works for all the sectors,” she said.

Under the system, organisations are expected to authenticate an individual’s identity by matching their fingerprint or facial image against the biometric record linked to the person’s NIN. Once authenticated, authorised institutions can securely retrieve verified identity information through NIMC’s authentication platform instead of repeatedly asking citizens to provide the same biodata.

According to Coker-Odusote, banks, telecom operators, insurance companies and fintech firms are already using this real-time verification infrastructure.

For decades, government agencies and private organisations maintained separate identity databases that rarely communicated with one another, forcing citizens to repeatedly submit the same personal information while institutions often held conflicting records for the same individual.

But based on interviews with technology experts, bankers and policy analysts, the claim is not as straightforward as Coker-Odusote made it sound. While there is broad agreement that the NIN should become Nigeria’s foundational digital identity and that significant progress has been made in linking major databases, everyday experience of Nigerians has yet to reflect the seamless interoperability implied by NIMC’s claim.

Experts say the continued practice of making Nigerians fill out extensive forms therefore points less to the absence of a national identity infrastructure than to uneven adoption of authentication services across institutions.

It is this gap between what the infrastructure is designed to deliver and what Nigerians actually experience that Vanguard examined.

When Mr. David Omobola recently walked into a bank in Lagos to open a new account, he expected the process to be straightforward.

After all, he already possessed a National Identification Number, NIN, the unique identifier that the Federal Government says now underpins Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem.

Instead, he was asked to complete forms containing information he believed should already exist in the national identity database.

“I recently opened a First Bank account and had to provide all my details again- my name, age, date of birth and other information -even after giving them my NIN,” he told Vanguard.

For Omobola, the experience raised questions about how far integration has actually gone.

“I don’t think they have fully integrated NIN into the systems of government agencies and private organisations yet. If they had, there would be less need for people to keep submitting the same information everywhere they go,” he said.

The real question is no longer whether the NIN has become Nigeria’s foundational identity credential – few dispute that it has. Rather, the issue is whether organisations have fully adopted the authentication and interoperability tools needed to translate that infrastructure into a seamless experience for citizens.

The cost of data mismatches

For Mrs. Mercy Obadare, a small business owner, the challenge was not repeated data collection but conflicting data.

Recalling an ordeal she endured last year, she recalled how a mismatch between her NIN record and international passport created months of frustration.

“My date of birth on the NIN was different from what was on my international passport. I don’t know how it got mixed up because I provided the correct information during registration,” she told Vanguard.

She only discovered the discrepancy when processing official documents.

“It was only when I needed to process some official documents that I discovered the date of birth on my NIN did not correspond with the one on my international passport.”

The discovery triggered a lengthy correction process.

“I had to start the process all over again. That meant going to the NIMC office in Alausa-Ikeja, Lagos. At the time, we were repeatedly told that the server was down. For more than six months, people kept going there without being attended to.”

When services eventually resumed, she faced another challenge.

“Six months later, when the server came back, they started the revalidation process and asked me to pay more than N40, 000. By the time I completed everything, I had spent over N80, 000.”

The error also affected her Permanent Voter’s Card, PVC.

“My PVC had the same problem because the details did not tally. It was only after the NIN record was corrected that the PVC could also be corrected.”

For Obadare, the experience illustrates one of the hidden risks of a digital identity ecosystem, where records are linked but the underlying data is inaccurate.

“We were so many with similar problems at the time,” she said.

Progress, but not full integration, Yet industry stakeholders say the reality on the ground is more complex.

Founder of Afri Invoice, Mr. Mark Odenore, believes Nigeria has made progress but remains far from achieving seamless interoperability.

“Currently, it’s working to an extent, but not all systems are talking to one another yet,” he said.

According to him, many organisations still depend on costly third-party APIs to access and verify identity information.

“We often have to depend on third-party APIs to enable access, and that is usually very expensive.”

Odenore said the challenge is no longer the existence of NIN itself but the willingness and ability of institutions to share data efficiently.

“We need more awareness and greater cooperation among agencies. The agencies need to agree to work together and share data more effectively.”

Banking sector sees gains, but gaps remain

The banking industry has perhaps benefited more than any other sector from identity integration.

Chief Digital Officer of LOTUS Bank, Mr. Akin Adegoke, said NIN has significantly improved customer onboarding and identity verification.

“It has made onboarding smoother and more trustworthy because we can now verify identity against a national database instead of relying only on documents,” he said.

However, he acknowledged that full interoperability has not yet been achieved.

“Verification is largely digital but updates are not fully automatic across all systems yet. Some reconciliation and validation steps are still required to keep records aligned.”

According to him, challenges such as mismatched records, incomplete information and update delays continue to affect operations.

“We’re still not at full interoperability, and there are gaps in how seamlessly systems connect and exchange information in real time.”

Linkage is not interoperability

Technology policy analyst Mr. Wonder Akpeki believes much of the public debate stems from confusion between identity linkage and true interoperability.

“What we have today is a federated linkage system with a shared identifier, not a fully integrated identity ecosystem,” he explained.

According to him, agencies can verify identities using NIN, but most still maintain separate databases, different standards and independent update processes.

The consequence is that citizens continue to provide the same information repeatedly.

“A citizen with a NIN should not have to keep filling in their name, date of birth and other basic details every time they interact with a government agency. The fact that this still happens shows that harmonisation remains incomplete.”

The missing piece

Ms. Amaka Onyemenam, adviser at Africa Practice, said Nigeria has made substantial progress but cautioned against equating database linkage with full integration.

“Nigeria has achieved substantial linkage and partial interoperability, but not yet the level of interoperability implied by a fully integrated identity ecosystem,” she said.

According to her, advanced digital economies often maintain multiple databases but connect them through common standards, verification protocols and consent frameworks.

“The goal is not necessarily to collapse every database into one. The goal is to make them work together seamlessly.”

She warned that linked databases without harmonised underlying records can create a false sense of integration.

“When records are linked through a common identifier but the underlying data have not been reconciled, every discrepancy becomes a potential barrier.”

Between promise and reality

For millions of Nigerians, the success of the country’s digital identity programme will not be measured by enrolment figures, verification speeds or integration announcements.

Instead, it will be measured by simple everyday experiences.

Can a citizen walk into a government office and avoid filling out information already linked to their NIN?

Can a correction made in one database automatically reflect across others?

Can identity verification happen seamlessly without delays, mismatches or repeated documentation?

The evidence gathered by Vanguard suggests that Nigeria has undoubtedly travelled far from the era of completely disconnected databases. NIN has become a powerful national identifier, enabling identity verification across banking, telecommunications, immigration and other sectors.

Yet the experiences of citizens such as Omobola and Obadare reveal that the journey towards a truly unified digital identity ecosystem is still ongoing.

While the country has achieved substantial identity linkage, experts say genuine interoperability, where systems communicate seamlessly, records remain synchronised and citizens experience a single digital identity across services, remains a work in progress.

For now, Nigeria may have reduced fragmentation significantly, but whether it has completely eliminated it remains open to debate.

*This report is supported by the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop .