This update on SDG 10 in Nigeria centers on a legislative reform reshaping who can participate in the country’s formal economy in an era where digitalization serves as a prerequisite for economic development. Across Nigeria’s markets and workshops, banks and insurers often deny small business owners credit extensions and insurance policies because the owners cannot provide recognized proof of identity. This gap kept millions of Nigerians out of the country’s formal financial system for decades, preventing them from opening bank accounts, securing loans or growing their businesses beyond cash transactions. 

Nigeria’s poverty rate illustrates the scale of what is at stake. The World Bank reported in 2026 that the share of Nigerians living below the national poverty line rose to an estimated 63%, up from 61% the previous year. Financial exclusion compounds that poverty. Without access to credit, savings or insurance, low income households have fewer tools to absorb shocks like illness or crop failure, and small businesses cannot grow beyond what cash on hand permits. Expanding financial access cannot eliminate poverty on its own, though it removes one of the structural barriers preventing people from building financial resilience – the exact goal SDG 10 sets.

In June 2026, Nigeria signed the National Identity Management Commission Act into law – a reform officials say is designed to expand financial inclusion in Nigeria by giving citizens a single, trusted form of identification. The law replaces its former 2007 framework that fragmented the country’s identity system across competing databases. The reform in Nigeria reflects a commitment to United Nations SDG 10, which calls on countries to reduce inequality by expanding the social and economic inclusion of marginalized populations by 2030.

A New Legal Foundation

President Bola Tinubu signed the NIMC Act 2026 into law at the State House in Abuja on Friday, June 26, 2026, according to a statement from the presidency. The Senate President, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Attorney General, the Interior Minister and a World Bank representative witnessed the signing. The law establishes the National Identification Number as what officials describe as the single source of truth for identity verification across government and financial services. Nigerians already use the number for passport issuance and renewal, and banks and insurance companies are integrating it into their systems, according to Leadership newspaper.

A Market Already Taking Shape

The digital economy’s contribution to Nigeria’s gross domestic product has risen from about 16% to roughly 19% in recent years, Bosun Tijani, the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, said in November 2025. The government is targeting a $1 trillion economy overall, with the digital sector accounting for 21% of GDP by 2027, Tijani said.

Global companies have already found opportunity in Nigeria’s identity infrastructure. In 2013, the National Identity Management Commission partnered with Mastercard, the American payments company, on a pilot program to issue 13 million Mastercard-branded identity cards combining biometric verification with electronic payment functions.

Nigeria’s identity system has since moved toward a domestic card scheme called AfriGo, which the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System operate. Nonetheless, the Mastercard partnership was an early demonstration that Nigeria’s push toward digital identity holds visible commercial value for global payment providers.

The World Bank’s Wider Bet

Nigeria’s NIMC reform corresponds with a larger effort backed by the World Bank. Its Global Digital Public Infrastructure Program, launched in May 2026, funds digital identity, fast payments and secure data-sharing systems that banks, insurers and other private companies can build services around. This serves to extend, spanning financial inclusion in Nigeria and comparable markets to populations previously unreachable by formal lenders. The program estimates that 2.9 billion people worldwide currently lack a digital identity for online transactions, with only 8% of lower middle-income countries and 16% of upper middle-income countries having fast, inclusive payment systems in place.

In Nigeria specifically, that connection is already visible. According to the World Bank, the government’s rollout of targeted cash transfers for 15 million vulnerable households has moved more slowly than planned because it depends on integrating the national identity management system. In other words, the same infrastructure this reform strengthens is the mechanism the government relies on to identify and pay Nigeria’s poorest households directly, rather than through intermediaries who can introduce delay or leakage.

A World Bank representative attended the NIMC Act signing in Abuja, positioning Nigeria as an early participant in the program’s venture into Sub-Saharan Africa. A growing share of the population once locked out of the formal economy is approaching the threshold banks and insurers require before extending credit, savings products and coverage. As more Nigerians gain recognized identification, product lines that were commercially unviable for a fragmented, undocumented customer base start to fall under business logic.

Looking Ahead

With a $1 trillion economic target on the horizon and financial inclusion advancing alongside it, this update on SDG 10 in Nigeria points to a country using digital infrastructure to pursue the UN’s 2030 inclusion goals. For a country where more than 60% of the population lives in poverty, closing the identity gap is a foundational step toward opening a new consumer market and reaching the people that market has excluded.

– Gayatri Lilly Sabharwal

Gayatri is based in London, UK and focuses on Business and Politics for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons