Nigeria's government data silos are blocking AI development

Making the NIN the single mandatory key for banks, telecoms, pensions, land and tax sounds like a clean digital infrastructure win.

But NIMC's own figures say roughly 40% of Nigerians — tens of millions of people — aren't in the database yet.

Make one number the gateway to every service, and you don't just modernise the system. You formally lock out everyone the system hasn't reached yet. The ambition of the law and the coverage of the infrastructure are not in the same sentence.

Making NIMC the Root Certification Authority — the top of the chain that validates every digital certificate in Nigeria — is a genuinely bold architectural choice. Every secure transaction, every verified identity, every government service now traces back to one institution.

That is exactly the kind of foundational infrastructure a serious digital economy needs. It is also a single point of failure.

The law concentrates identity management, authentication and digital trust inside one commission. The article is honest about what follows: the whole model's effectiveness depends on subsidiary regulations that haven't been written yet. Build the roof before the walls are up, and the question isn't whether the ambition is real — it's whether the institution can hold the weight.