Legislation is only ever as good as the will to enforce it, and Nigeria’s insurance sector has seen enough promising reforms dissolve into bureaucratic inertia to know the difference. That is precisely the message the Centre for Credible Reforms and Institutional Accountability (CCRIA) has directed at the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) following the enactment of the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025 — a law that, on paper at least, represents the most substantive overhaul of the sector in a generation.
In a formal statement, CCRIA president Dr Aminu Abubakar Aminu acknowledged the legislation as a genuine milestone, crediting President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly for recognising that the legal framework governing insurance in Nigeria had grown dangerously outdated. The act introduces stronger capital requirements for insurers, tightens regulatory accountability and places greater emphasis on protecting policyholders — the ordinary Nigerians who have too often found themselves at the losing end of disputed claims and undercapitalised providers. “NIIRA provides the foundation for an insurance sector that is better capitalised, more accountable, more responsive to policyholders and better equipped to contribute meaningfully to the Nigerian economy,” Aminu said, and few observers of the sector would dispute the diagnosis that preceded it.
The recapitalisation exercise sits at the heart of the reform agenda, and CCRIA was clear-eyed about what it can and cannot achieve on its own. Raising capital thresholds compels insurers to shore up their financial foundations, which in turn improves their capacity to honour legitimate claims — a basic function that parts of the Nigerian market have historically struggled to perform. But the group was equally direct in its warning: higher numbers on a balance sheet mean very little if the regulator lacks the resolve to scrutinise how those figures are reached and to act decisively when operators fall short. Enforcement, not legislation, is where reform either takes root or withers.
Aminu’s appeal to NAICOM was therefore not ceremonial. He called on the commission to provide clear, consistent guidance to operators, brokers, reinsurers and professional bodies, and urged those industry participants to treat compliance as a core obligation rather than an afterthought to be managed when convenient. The credibility of the entire exercise rests on whether NAICOM applies NIIRA’s provisions with the same rigour in year three as it does in year one, because reform fatigue is a real institutional disease and Nigeria has suffered from it before. “What is required at this stage is continuity, professionalism and commitment to the objectives of the law,” Aminu said, adding that the gains must become permanent features of the industry rather than a headline achievement that fades with the news cycle.
The deeper stakes are not merely regulatory. Insurance penetration in Nigeria remains stubbornly low by any regional comparison, and the reasons are not difficult to identify: a widespread public belief that insurers will find reasons not to pay, compounded by years of under-regulation that did little to challenge that perception. Rebuilding that trust requires policyholders to see claims settled promptly and fairly, to see bad actors penalised visibly, and to see a regulator that communicates openly with the public it exists to protect. CCRIA’s call for NAICOM to maintain genuine stakeholder dialogue is not a soft suggestion — it is a condition for the reform to mean anything beyond Abuja’s policy circles.
The group singled out NAICOM Commissioner and Chief Executive Ayo Omosehin for specific commendation, citing his promotion of transparency and accountability during the early implementation phase. That recognition carries implicit weight: it sets a public benchmark against which Omosehin’s leadership will continue to be measured, and it signals that civil society is watching. Separately, and in a development that reflects the contested nature of the reform environment, the Coalition for Good Governance in Nigeria quietly retracted an earlier call for Omosehin’s removal, acknowledging in a statement that the claims underpinning that demand were inaccurate, incomplete and unsupported by verifiable evidence — a reminder that accountability must run in all directions, including towards those who level accusations.
Nigeria has the legal architecture it needs. The question now is whether NAICOM, the industry and the government that championed this legislation possess the institutional discipline to see it through — not just for the duration of a press cycle, but for long enough to change what ordinary Nigerians actually experience when they file a claim.