Reform Description

This commitment aims to enhance beneficial ownership (BO) transparency in Nigeria by promoting data integration across relevant agencies, enhancing civil society access to beneficial ownership data, and improving data standards for fiscal transparency and open-source data in Nigeria. This reform aim to promote data exchange and interoperability between public finance entities such that the data on the the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC)’s Beneficial Ownership Register, the Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) managed by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), the Oil and Gas and Minerals BO registers managed by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), and financial disclosure tools like the Open Treasury and Open Banking platforms are interlinked and speak to each other. By enabling secure and structured data exchange among these systems, this reform will ensure that procurement records and financial flows can be directly traced to real human beneficiaries behind companies, trusts, and legal arrangements.

Second, this reform will strengthen access to BO data by civil society organisations (CSOs) through user-centered formats, real-time interfaces, and data-sharing protocols. It will also foster partnerships between CSOs and government actors to ensure BO data supports accountability and citizen engagement.

Third, the reform will support the development and adoption of a standardised data publication framework for the Open Treasury platform and other public finance tools that allow for real-time monitoring of financial inflow and outflow in government for transparency and accountability. Currently, Nigeria’s  Open Treasury lacks consistency in data structure, granularity, and metadata. The new standard will define how data is structured, tagged, linked to contracting entities and BOs, and made machine-readable to allow data fusion with procurement and company ownership records.

These combined actions will not only enhance the availability and usability of BO data but will also transform how BO information informs due diligence in procurement, strengthen the integrity of public finance, reinforce public trust in governance and enable public accountability in Nigeria’s resource governance and budget systems.

Problem(s) Addressed by Reform

The primary problem this commitment addresses is the use of anonymous corporate structures to hide illicit financial flows, influence public procurement, evade taxes, and siphon public funds. Despite ongoing reforms, the limited interoperability between different data platforms, such as company ownership, public procurement, extractives licensing, and treasury payments, has made it difficult to establish transparent linkages between beneficial owners and the financial flows they influence.

Nigeria lost about $18 billion annually due to corruption and financial crimes, specifically from public procurement. Other sectors like the extractives have also recorded substantial losses due to corruption perpetrated by an intricate network of syndicates who exploit state resources for their benefit. A notable example of domestic resource corruption is the Malabu Scandal, which involved the illicit transfer of billions of dollars intended for crude oil block allocations in Nigeria. 

The current lack of data coordination allows corrupt actors to exploit loopholes by using shell companies to bid for and win contracts, sometimes across multiple ministries or sectors, without detection. There is also weak cross-referencing between who owns companies and who receives public funds, particularly in high-risk sectors like oil, gas, and mining.

Additionally, civil society organisations and the media have limited access to structured, machine-readable BO data, limiting their capacity to track irregularities, investigate illicit financial flows, and hold power to account. Even after the development of the BO register by CAC and NEITI and the design of the NOCOPO platform, and data about beneficial owners of companies and procurement processes is technically available, it is often not published in formats that enable easy use necessary to produce actionable insights for investigations and advocacy.

Another key issue is the lack of standardised publication for Nigeria’s Open Treasury data, which makes it difficult to connect treasury disbursements to entities or individuals with hidden beneficial interests. Without harmonised publication standards, data across portals remains fragmented and unlinked.

This fragmentation undermines Nigeria’s efforts to promote fiscal transparency, close revenue leakages, and recover stolen public assets. It also inhibits efforts to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes that depend on opaque ownership structures and weak transparency ecosystems.

This reform represents a systemic response to the problem of corruption enabled by hidden ownership structures and silo systems. By creating interoperability between major this reform will unlock the full potential of each system and provide a more holistic picture of how public funds flow through legal entities in Nigeria.

This integration will allow anti-corruption agencies, civil society, and investigative journalists to detect red flags in real-time, such as when a politically exposed person or a hidden owner is involved in multiple contracts, or when a single individual is linked to multiple entities receiving state funds.

In addition, improving civil society access to BO data in structured, usable formats will make it easier to carry out independent investigations and demand accountability. CSOs will be able to develop digital tools, dashboards, and visualisations that help ordinary citizens understand how public funds are spent and who benefits from them.

The development of a data publication standard for Open Treasury will ensure that disbursement data is structured, granular, and connected to procurement records and BO data. This will allow more effective audits and due diligence checks across the public finance lifecycle, from contract award to final payment.

Altogether, this commitment moves Nigeria away from fragmented and reactive anti-corruption efforts and toward a proactive, data-driven, and joined-up governance framework that prevents corruption before it occurs, strengthens deterrence, and fosters public trust.

Relevance to OGP Values

This commitment is directly aligned with the core open government values of transparency, public accountability, and civic participation.

By improving data interoperability and harmonising data publication standards, the reform will make a broader set of government-held information, especially related to who owns what and who receives public funds, accessible in structured, machine-readable, and open formats. This will enhance fiscal transparency by enabling cross-checking of government spending, contracting, and ownership data.

The reform also strengthens public accountability by making it easier for oversight institutions and the public to trace the flow of public resources and detect potential conflicts of interest, fraud, or abuse of office. Connecting BO data with procurement, treasury systems and open banking data allows for deeper scrutiny of public finance processes and promotes more responsible governance.

Finally, the commitment enhances civic participation by equipping civil society organizations, journalists, researchers, and citizens with the tools and information they need to engage meaningfully in governance. By enabling CSOs to access and use BO data, the reform supports data-driven advocacy, amplifies citizen voice, and empowers communities to demand better service delivery and integrity from public officials.

These measures fulfill the principles of the Open Government Partnership by not only opening up government data but also ensuring that such data can be meaningfully used to foster participation, accountability, and impact.

Intended Results

By January 2028, this reform aims to deliver an operational, cross-platform interoperability system connecting CAC’s Beneficial Ownership Register, NOCOPO, NEITI’s extractive ownership data, Open Treasury, and relevant financial data under Open Banking protocols. 

The reform expects to establish a national data publication standard for the Open Treasury Portal, ensuring disbursement records from MDAs are published in machine-readable, standardised formats. 

Civil society organisations and investigative journalists will gain improved, reliable access to ownership and fiscal data via a user-friendly dashboard, enabling greater oversight, red-flagging, and public interest reporting. A major output will be aligning the data exchange among systems with existing digital governance framework to guide data use. These results are expected to improve Nigeria’s anti-corruption ratings in international assessments and visibly strengthen the country’s fiscal accountability framework.

Milestones

The first major milestone, set for Q3 2025, will be the formation of anof a multistakeholder group bringing together key government agencies like CAC, BPP, NEITI, and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation =, civil society organisations, academia and other members of the public like youth and women group to lead the interoperability agenda. 
In Q4 2025, a technical audit will be conducted to assess the current state of each platform and to define the minimum requirements for interoperability. 

In Q1 2026 through Q3 2028, CAC’s BO Register and NOCOPO will be connected through an initial pilot API integration. Q3 2026 will feature a civic tech data challenge to promote public use of the new tools and identify practical use cases. In Q4 2026, the Open Treasury Data Publication Standard will be developed in accordance with international standards through a collaborative process involving CSOs and the government. Interoperability will expand in Q1 and Q2 2027 to include NEITI and selected financial data from banking platforms under Open Banking. By Q3 2027 through Q1 2028, a publicly accessible data dashboard will be launched. 

Is Civil Society Involved?

Yes. Civil society is integral to both the design and implementation of this reform. From the outset, CSOs will be invited to co-create the Open Treasury Data Publication Standard, drawing on their experience with fiscal monitoring and data use. They will also assess existing digital governance frameworks, update and adapt them to shape the Interoperability of all public finance systems. Civil society organisations and media practitioners will be early testers of the new integrated system and dashboard tools, helping to ensure usability and relevance to real-world advocacy and investigative needs. 

As the project progresses, CSOs will participate in training sessions on how to access and analyse beneficial ownership and public spending data for accountability campaigns. Their participation will also include monitoring government compliance with publication timelines and data standards, and producing independent progress reports to enhance public oversight. Platforms like the Open Government Partnership Nigeria and civil society cluster will be key allies in ensuring inclusive implementation and citizen-centred governance.