A new report by Smart DNA Nigeria has found that 23.6% of recorded paternity test results were negative during the company’s 2025/2026 reporting period, meanin...
A new report by Smart DNA Nigeria has found that 23.6% of recorded paternity test results were negative during the company’s 2025/2026 reporting period, meaning the man tested was excluded as the biological father.
The findings are contained in Smart DNA’s latest annual DNA Testing Report, which covers relationship DNA testing conducted between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. The report found that 76% of recorded results were positive, while 0.5% were inconclusive.
The negative result rate was slightly lower than in previous reporting periods. Smart DNA recorded a 24% negative rate in the preceding period and 26.1% in 2023, showing a gradual decline over the three reporting periods.
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However, Smart DNA has warned against interpreting the latest figure as evidence that one in four Nigerian children is being raised by a man who is not their biological father. The company said its clients were not randomly selected from the Nigerian population but were people who had chosen to undergo DNA testing, often because they already had questions about a biological relationship.
The distinction is important because the 23.6% figure represents negative results among people tested by Smart DNA and cannot be used as a national estimate of non-paternity. The company said its report was not a nationally representative survey of Nigerian households.
Smart DNA said 87% of the recorded tests were classified as “Peace of Mind” tests. These are private, self-initiated tests conducted primarily by people seeking confirmation of biological relationships rather than for legal or immigration purposes.
The proportion of private tests increased from 83.7% in the preceding reporting period. Immigration-related tests accounted for 9.7% of cases, while legal tests represented 1.9%, avuncular tests 1% and prenatal testing 0.4%.
Men were the main group initiating DNA testing enquiries. Smart DNA said men accounted for 78.6% of recorded first contacts, compared with 15.2% for women. The company said the figures show who initiated contact with the testing centre but do not explain the individual circumstances behind each enquiry.
The age profile of those undergoing testing also showed a strong representation of older men. Men aged 41 and above accounted for 48% of classified male records, while those aged between 31 and 40 accounted for 35.8%. Together, men aged 31 and above represented 83.8% of classified male records.
Young children accounted for a large proportion of the people tested. Children aged five and below represented 59.5% of age-classified tested individuals, according to the report. The data show when many of the tests involved young children, but do not establish why individual families chose to undergo testing.
Boys accounted for 56.7% of children tested, compared with 43.3% for girls. Smart DNA said the reasons for the difference were not directly measured, meaning the figures cannot establish why boys were more frequently represented in the testing data.
Geographically, Lagos accounted for 75.1% of classified cases during the reporting period, up from 69% in the preceding period. Outside Lagos, Ogun recorded the highest testing activity, followed by Delta, Oyo, Rivers, Enugu, Edo, Abuja, Imo and Kwara.
Smart DNA said the geographical figures reflect its own client base and should not be interpreted as showing differences in paternity behaviour between states or communities. The company also cautioned against using the data to make claims about ethnic groups because its clients do not constitute a random sample of Nigeria’s population.
The report comes as demand for relationship DNA testing continues to increase. Smart DNA recorded a 45.9% year-on-year increase in testing activity during the reporting period, while the proportion of negative paternity results remained around one-quarter of recorded outcomes.
The company said the figures demonstrate the role DNA testing plays in answering questions about biological relationships, but it also warned that laboratory results cannot explain the personal circumstances that lead families to seek testing.
“A laboratory result can provide a highly reliable answer to a biological question, but aggregate testing data cannot, on its own, explain the motives or circumstances behind every family that seeks a test,” Smart DNA said.
The warning is particularly relevant to the way the 23.6% figure is discussed publicly. A negative result among Smart DNA’s clients does not mean that 23.6% of all Nigerian fathers are not the biological fathers of the children they are raising.
The company said people who seek DNA testing are a self-selecting group and may already have concerns about biological relationships. Nigerians with no reason to question paternity are less likely to seek a test, meaning their experiences are not represented in the testing centre’s results.
Smart DNA’s report therefore provides information about the outcomes and characteristics of people who used its DNA testing services during the 2025/2026 period rather than a nationwide measurement of paternity discrepancies.
The findings also show that private “Peace of Mind” testing has become the dominant reason for relationship DNA testing recorded by the company. This indicates that many of the people using the service are seeking personal confirmation rather than testing solely for court, immigration or other official purposes.
The report has renewed attention on DNA testing in Nigeria, but Smart DNA has urged the public to consider the limitations of the data before drawing conclusions about Nigerian families. The company said its purpose was to provide evidence to a discussion that is often influenced by individual stories and claims that are not supported by representative data.
The latest figures show that three out of four recorded paternity tests at Smart DNA produced positive results, while 23.6% produced negative results. The negative rate has also declined from 26.1% in 2023 to 24% in the preceding reporting period and 23.6% in 2025/2026.
Smart DNA’s findings therefore point to continued demand for DNA relationship testing while also demonstrating why laboratory testing data must be placed in context. The 2025/2026 report provides a snapshot of people who sought testing at the company, but it does not establish the prevalence of non-paternity among Nigerian families as a whole.
