Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has brought Nigeria’s corporate game to the redefinition of the corporate world with the introduction of an Artificial Intelligence portal for registration.Â
The portal aims to automatize business registrations significantly, specifically reduce turnaround time, and enhance the user experience as well as encourage more digitally savvy corporate culture.
Making his first appearance at the 2025 Stakeholders Forum in Port Harcourt, Registrar-General of CAC Hussaini Ishaq Magaji (SAN) emphasised the portal as a public service delivery upgrade. His stated words, the new portal is the revamp of the existing Company Registration Portal and designed to provide approvals in real-time and eliminate age-long registration delays.
The most innovative aspect of the platform is likely its real-time name reservation system. Through use of AI, the platform will make auto-suggestions for alternative available business name options in case a preferred one is already registered, saving entrepreneurs from spending time searching elsewhere. The intelligent automation should be as easy as signing up for an email account.
Business registration is now offered based entirely on the National Identification Number (NIN) of a director or a proprietor. It is an automated system that produces the certificate of registration and sends it to the applicant on verification of the NIN, both within a 30-minute window. This is innovation that puts Nigeria among the very few African countries that offer full digital instant business registration services.
While the CAC did admit the possibility of certain hiccups through third-party NIN verification, i.e., third-party delays of the National Identity Management Commission, Magaji ensured that the AI system has a back-up. The back-up is through photo ID matching technology that does not allow registration to be delayed because of third-party issues.
CAC also unveiled other digital innovations that are to be launched in 2025 in the future. There is a mobile app that is being developed so that individuals can work with company information, track submission, and perform transactions using their cell phones. Two-factor authentication and OTP authentication are also being implemented by the commission on all activities related to the company so that there will be a heightened security and business papers will be protected from unauthorized alteration.
Under its modernization program, CAC will also revise its service fees effective August 1, 2025. The commission further announced that the new fee will enable it to sustain technology upgrading and deliver quality provision of services.
The meeting of stakeholders was greeted with commendations from an array of professionals and players in the industry, including the Nigerian Bar Association, Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSAN), and the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), who all commended CAC for its efforts at Business Streamlining in Nigeria, effectiveness, and transparency.
With this artificial intelligence revolution, Nigeria’s registration of business is entering a new world of one that is speed-loving, secure, and investor-trusting, and the nation is a more competitive platform on which to establish a business and innovate.
