*Says commission should serve as central corporate data backbone
James Emejo in Abuja
Registrar-General/Chief Executive, Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, has advocated the harmonisation and centralisation of the country’s beneficial ownership information to curb illicit financial flows and other related crimes.
Magaji said fragmented databases across government institutions could undermine efforts to identify the individuals ultimately controlling companies and benefiting from corporate structures.
He spoke at the opening of a training workshop on the Beneficial Ownership Register, organised for journalists and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Abuja.
He said the country needed to move beyond maintaining separate “islands” of beneficial ownership information towards an interconnected national transparency architecture.
The CAC boss stressed that the objective should be to enable regulators, law enforcement agencies, journalists and other authorised users to connect ownership information across different sectors and establish the natural persons ultimately behind corporate entities.
Essentially, the commission currently operates the register, while beneficial ownership information relating to entities in the Free Trade Zones (FTZs) is maintained within the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) framework, with similar information on extractive industries maintained under the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
While acknowledging the statutory basis for the separate arrangements, Magaji said the information being sought by the different registers was substantially the same.
According to him, the fundamental questions remained: who owns an entity, who controls it, who benefits from it and who remains the natural person behind the corporate structure.
He said, “Do we continue to operate separate islands of beneficial ownership information, or do we move towards a harmonised and centralised national architecture?”
He stressed that the CAC corporate registry should serve as the central corporate data backbone, noting that the proposal was not intended to strip NEPZA, NEITI or other institutions of their statutory responsibilities, but to ensure that relevant information could be connected and accessed through common standards.
The Registrar-General added, “Transparency works best when information can be connected.”
He explained that companies could operate across different sectors and regulatory environments, making it necessary for ownership information to remain visible irrespective of where an entity conducts business.
He stated that an integrated system would help eliminate duplication, improve the quality of corporate information and provide a clearer picture of ownership structures for legitimate investigative and regulatory purposes.
Unmasking real company owners
The CAC boss also sought to deepen public understanding of beneficial ownership, noting that Nigeria’s corporate legal framework uses the term Person with Significant Control (PSC) to capture the concept.
Under Nigeria’s Persons with Significant Control Rules, 2022, disclosure is designed to identify individuals who ultimately exercise significant ownership, control or influence over companies and other relevant entities.
Magaji further explained that although directors and shareholders may appear in a company’s immediate corporate records, the person exercising ultimate control or benefiting from the structure could be different from the individuals whose names appear on the documents.
He described the PSC framework as an effort to “lift the veil” of corporate complexity and identify the human being ultimately behind a corporate structure.
He stressed that beneficial ownership disclosure should therefore not be treated merely as another regulatory requirement but as an instrument for corporate accountability, transparency and the fight against illicit financial activities.
The framework, he said, was particularly important in tackling corruption, illicit financial flows, money laundering, terrorism financing and the abuse of corporate structures.
Tool for investigative journalism
Magaji also urged journalists to begin viewing the beneficial ownership register as an investigative resource capable of helping them uncover relationships that may not be immediately apparent from conventional company records.
The registrar-general challenged journalists investigating companies, transactions, procurement arrangements or business relationships to establish who ultimately owns, controls or benefits from the entities involved.
He said beneficial ownership information had already become useful to anti-corruption and law-enforcement agencies, including the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
According to him, the agencies have utilised beneficial ownership information in investigative and enforcement activities, including tracing ownership structures and identifying persons connected with assets and transactions under investigation.
He therefore encouraged journalists and CSOs to access the information, interrogate it, conduct further verification and use it to strengthen public accountability.
However, he cautioned against interpreting the appearance of an individual’s name in a corporate record as evidence of wrongdoing.
He said journalists must independently verify information, understand the context and report findings fairly and responsibly.
He urged the media to “Use the information. Question the information. Verify the information. Tell the story”.
Transparency protects legitimate businesses
Magaji further stated that greater corporate transparency should not be viewed as a threat to legitimate businesses.
According to him, a credible beneficial ownership regime would help protect honest entrepreneurs from being associated with fraudulent entities, strengthen investor confidence, support law-enforcement operations and improve the country’s international standing.
It would also assist government in protecting public resources and make it more difficult for corporate structures to be exploited for illicit purposes.
The CAC boss reaffirmed the commission’s resolve to ensuring that the register became more than a database maintained for regulatory compliance, but a practical instrument supporting wider corporate governance and anti-corruption reforms.
He disclosed that access to the commission’s beneficial ownership information was free, urging journalists and CSOs to familiarise themselves with the platform and make responsible use of the available information.
Nigeria as reference point
Magaji also highlighted the country’s growing international recognition in the implementation of beneficial ownership transparency.
He said the country had moved from learning from other jurisdictions to becoming a reference point for countries seeking to operationalise their own beneficial ownership systems.
According to him, countries had increasingly been looking to Nigeria’s experience through peer reviews, knowledge exchanges and other engagements focused on how beneficial ownership transparency could be translated from policy into an operational system.
He described the development as an achievement that Nigeria must protect while continuing to identify areas for improvement.
The next stage, he suggested, should focus on harmonisation, interoperability and ensuring that beneficial ownership information maintained by different institutions could be connected without compromising legitimate privacy and data-protection requirements.
He said the CAC was undergoing digital transformation aimed at improving access to corporate information, strengthening the integrity of its registers and making its services more efficient and transparent.
Ultimately, he said, Nigeria needed to move from merely collecting ownership information to connecting and understanding it.