CAC rolls out AI-Powered portal to end delays in business registration.

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The Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Mr. Hussaini Ishaq-Magaji, SAN, has pledged to eliminate delays in business registration and service delivery through sweeping digital reforms.

Speaking on Monday at the CAC Stakeholders’ Forum in Kano, which brought together lawyers, entrepreneurs, the EFCC, ICPC, and other partners, Ishaq-Magaji explained that the commission had inherited an overstretched registration system. He noted that the surge in compliance-driven activities such as mandatory registration of Point-of-Sale (PoS) businesses and annual returns filing had overwhelmed the portal.

“Our call centre and operational departments receive no fewer than 3,000 emails daily, with less than 100 staff attending to them,” he revealed. “This model is not sustainable and not fair to our customers or our staff. That is why we resolved to change it for good.

To address the challenge, the registrar general announced the introduction of an artificial intelligence-powered portal capable of processing thousands of customer requests within seconds. He disclosed that since its launch in June, the system has reduced the time required for registering a business name to under 10 minutes—an achievement he described as “unprecedented globally”.

“Anywhere you are, without knowing anyone in CAC or paying a middleman, you can register a business name and get your certificate instantly in less than 10 minutes. That is the new Nigeria we are building,” Ishaq-Magaji said.

Despite this breakthrough, he acknowledged that some services, such as limited liability company and incorporated trustee registrations, were still facing delays, with about 7,000 pending applications being managed by only 63 registry staff. He assured stakeholders that the next phases of the digital reforms would tackle these gaps, stressing that technology had become indispensable for the commission to fulfil its mandate.

At the event, Ahmed Abubakar, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ungogo branch, praised the commission’s digital transformation, calling it a “remarkable achievement”. Similarly, Usman Umar-Fari, Chairman of the NBA Kano branch, urged the CAC to encourage companies to take corporate social responsibility seriously while creating more opportunities for lawyers.

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