The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has called for the harmonisation and centralisation of beneficial ownership records held by government agencies, saying a unified system would strengthen efforts to identify the individuals ultimately controlling companies and tackle illicit financial activities.
CAC Registrar-General and Chief Executive Officer, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, made the call during a training session on Nigeria’s Beneficial Ownership Register for journalists and civil society organisations in Abuja.
Beneficial ownership information is designed to reveal the natural persons who ultimately own, control or benefit from a company, even where ownership is structured through several corporate entities.
According to the CAC, Nigeria currently has three separate beneficial ownership information systems operated under different institutional frameworks.
These include the register maintained by the CAC, information on entities operating within free trade zones under the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), and ownership information relating to the extractive industries maintained under the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) framework.
Mr Magaji said although the separate registers serve legitimate statutory purposes, they collect substantially similar information and could be better connected to provide a complete picture of corporate ownership.
“Information should not exist in silos. We must make it possible to see the complete picture,” he said.
He proposed a coordinated national framework in which the CAC’s corporate registry would serve as the central corporate data backbone, while allowing other agencies to retain their statutory responsibilities.
The CAC boss said fragmented records could make it difficult for regulators and law-enforcement agencies to establish who ultimately owns or controls a company, particularly where businesses operate across different sectors and regulatory environments.
He said greater interoperability between the databases would help answer key questions about corporate structures — including who owns an entity, who controls it and who ultimately benefits from it.
Why it matters
The commission said stronger coordination of beneficial ownership information could help authorities detect and investigate money laundering, illicit financial flows, terrorism financing and the misuse of corporate structures.
Mr Magaji also urged journalists and civil society organisations to scrutinise the existing system and advocate common standards, interoperability and the removal of unnecessary duplication.
However, he stressed that greater access to ownership information should be balanced with legitimate privacy and data-protection requirements.
The proposal forms part of wider efforts to strengthen corporate transparency in Nigeria and make it more difficult for individuals to conceal control of businesses behind complex ownership structures.
The CAC has previously argued that a fragmented ownership-record system can create gaps that undermine efforts to trace the real individuals behind companies and strengthen enforcement against financial crimes.
Mr Magaji said the objective was not simply to collect more corporate information, but to ensure that information held by different government institutions can be connected and effectively used.
“The real issue is not just knowing that a company exists, but knowing the people behind it,” the commission’s position effectively underscores, as Nigeria seeks to strengthen corporate transparency and close loopholes that can facilitate illicit financial activity.
