Smart DNA Nigeria’s 2025 Annual DNA Testing Report, covering July 2024 to June 2025, has revealed that one in four paternity tests in the country returned negative results, meaning 25 percent of presumed fathers were not biologically related to the children tested. Although this figure shows a slight decline from the previous year’s 27 percent, it still points to a persistent trust and family issue in Nigeria.
The report highlighted that firstborn children, especially firstborn sons, accounted for 64 percent of negative results.
It also noted a significant rise in immigration-related DNA tests, which grew to 13.1 percent, largely driven by families seeking documentation for relocation abroad as part of the ongoing “Japa” trend. According to the data, men remain the primary initiators of paternity testing, making 88.2 percent of the requests compared to 11.8 percent by women.
The findings have sparked renewed calls for legal reforms to address paternity fraud, integration of DNA testing into public health and family planning, and wider education to dispel misconceptions such as equating physical resemblance with biological paternity or seeing DNA tests as a luxury for the wealthy. Smart DNA’s Operations Manager, Elizabeth Digia, stressed that these results reflect urgent societal issues around trust, family dynamics, and legal protection in Nigeria.
