CAC Delists 400,000 Inactive, Non-compliant Companies

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has removed more than 400,000 inactive and non-compliant companies from its official register as part of a broad reform drive aimed at strengthening transparency, improving investor confidence, and cleaning up the country’s business ecosystem.

Registrar-general of the CAC, Mr. Hussaini Ishaq Magaji, disclosed this in Abuja during the Commission’s 35th anniversary activities, marking its evolution from a manual, location-bound registry into a fully digital corporate regulator serving Nigeria’s estimated 250 million population globally 24/7.

Magaji said the delisted entities were largely shell companies that had failed to file annual returns and no longer carried out active business, posing risks to economic integrity and investor trust.

“We did it to encourage confidence in our investors, so they can know we have a credible register at the Corporate Affairs Commission,” he said.

Magaji further stated that the clean-up formed part of broader digital and regulatory reforms that have repositioned the CAC as Nigeria’s only end-to-end fully digital government agency, enabling business registration and corporate filings without physical visits to its offices.

According to him, the Commission now delivers services “anywhere, anytime,” a shift he said that has significantly improved Nigeria’s ease-of-doing-business profile and lowered barriers to formalisation for enterprises.

Beyond regulatory reforms, the registrar-general announced plans to establish a CAC-managed hospital by 2026 to support staff welfare, alongside new housing and car loan schemes for employees. He said the Commission currently owes no outstanding staff claims and has improved career progression and morale across its workforce.

Founded in 1991, the CAC marks 35 years of operations in 2026, a period Magaji said has seen the agency transform from a single-location manual registry into a digitally driven institution central to Nigeria’s business formalisation, transparency, and investment credibility.