CAC leveraging on technology to improve service delivery – Registrar General
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By Bashir Bello
The Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, has stated that the commission is deploying and leveraging technology to enhance and ensure effective service delivery to its customers.
Magaji stated this during the customers’ forum in Kano.
He emphasized the urgent need for the deployment of technology to address systemic challenges and improve customer experience.
He said demand for its services had surged dramatically, hence the need for innovation to end the delays in business registration, among other things.
According to him, “When I assumed office as Registrar-General, I met a Commission that had already made strides in digital service delivery. We had an online registration portal in place, and many processes were accessible electronically. However, this digital infrastructure was overstretched and straining at its limits. Demand for our services had surged dramatically, fueled in part by new compliance drives such as the mandatory registration of Point-of-Sale (PoS) businesses and intensified enforcement of annual returns filing. These initiatives were highly successful in bringing more businesses into compliance, but they also placed unprecedented pressure on our systems. Simply put, the volume of new registrations and filings overwhelmed our old portal (CRP).
“Let me share with you some realities I met in CAC and am determined to change. Our call centre and operational departments receive not less than 3,000 emails a day, with fewer than 100 staff available to respond to such requests. Our staff is working late into the night and even from home to respond to these emails. However, they still cannot attend to 80% of these emails. In my judgment, this is unfair to you, our Customers and unfair to our staff.
“Since this model is not delivering the service you deserve, I shall change it with a good one. This is why we opted for an AI solution that can read 3,000 emails within a minute, comprehend the messages, identify duplicate requests, reroute the customer’s request to the appropriate unit or department/department and instantly respond to our customers. We understood that the only sustainable solution was to complement our human effort with intelligent systems, and to deploy this gradually and tactically—bit by bit, phase by phase—while keeping services running.
“On 30th June 2025, we launched a new AI-powered portal. (iCRP) With unlimited capacity and near-zero downtime. It is built to deliver business name registration in under 10 minutes and limited liability company registration in under 30 minutes. With the capacity to carry out Compliance checks, status searches, and customer services instantly. Phase One is already deployed, focusing on name reservation and business name registration, which is now live. Tested by all of you. I take pride in this feat, which we accomplished within the shortest possible time. Nowhere in the globe is business name registration achievable in less than 10 minutes. Therefore, we set the pace for the rest of the world to follow. Anywhere you are, in the comfort of your room, without knowing anyone in CAC, and without paying a middleman. You can register a business name and receive your certificate instantly in under 10 minutes. That is the new Nigeria we are building. This is the story I will proudly share next month at the Conference of Corporate Registers Forum in Tunisia.
“The success of Phase One gives us confidence in the remaining phases. We are currently testing modules offline to ensure stability before deployment, drawing from our previous experience. We cannot risk service disruption again. I know the transition has not been without pain. Many of you have experienced delays in approvals, primarily for services not captured in Phase 1. Such as registration for limited liability companies, incorporated trustees, name consents, and other services. This is due to the overwhelming volume of requests flooding the system.
“Today alone, I see a backlog of 7,000 registration applications. And with my only 63 registry staff to attend. This is not sustainable. This is why the AI agent is coming – an embedded system that will handle requests across compliance, registry, and customer services with speed and accuracy. For those less familiar with CAC’s scope, our mandate extends far beyond incorporation. We register companies, business names, and trustees; we process statutory filings; we register mortgages and share capital increases; we monitor compliance, and we conduct investigations into company affairs.
“To do all these effectively, technology is no longer optional—it is a necessity. We are working with our service providers daily to stabilize the new portal. The problems have been identified, and the solutions are already in motion,” the Registrar General, however, stated.
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