Federal Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and the Cooperative Federation of Nigeria (CFN) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Seamfix Limited to develop and deploy the National Cooperative Smart Registry.

It is a national digital registry for registering and verifying Nigeria’s cooperative societies and their members.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at an official ceremony in Abuja, at the weekend, presided over by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security and Supervising Minister of Cooperative Affairs, Dr Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi.

The partnership represents a major step in implementing the Renewed Hope Cooperative Reform and Revamp Programme (RH-CRRP 2030) and in the Federal Government’s efforts to modernise Nigeria’s cooperative sector.

The digital infrastructure comprises the National Cooperative Smart Registry (NCSR), the Cooperative Verification Number (CVN) for cooperative societies, and the Cooperative Member Identification Number (CoopID), which links every cooperative member’s verified identity to their National Identification Number (NIN).

Today, most cooperative societies in Nigeria manage their membership records manually. This makes it difficult to confirm who is genuinely registered, slows down access to government support, and leaves the sector’s true size and structure largely invisible to the formal economy.

The NCSR will change this by providing cooperatives with a digital register that links each member’s CoopID directly to their NIN.

The NCSR is designed to support, not replace, the statutory registration and regulatory responsibilities of the Federal Department of Cooperatives at the national level, and the State and FCT Departments and Directorates of Cooperatives within their respective jurisdictions. Together, the NCSR, CVN and CoopID will give the sector the transparency it has not had before.