According to statistics provided by the National Identity Management Commission, 241,110 diaspora Nigerians registered for National Identification Number (NIN) in 2022. This increases the overall number of diaspora Nigerians registered with NIN from 319,260 at the end of 2022 to 335,353 in January 2023. NIMC had already initiated enrolment in 2019 in collecting data of Nigerians residing outside the nation for the National Identity Database. As opposed to citizens, who were able to register for free, diaspora were required to pay a fee.
In 2022, the overall number of people with NIN surged from 72.7 million on January 1, 2022, to 94.03 million on December 31, 2022, a 21.33 million increase over the course of the year. In addition, the number of people who had registered with the database rocketed to 95.07 million as of January 22, 2023, with an increase of 1.04 million. Regarding statistics from across the country, the North and the South account for almost the same share. Whereas research shows that there are 53.68 million men and 41.40 million females nationwide who have NIN.
Gov’t unveiled a plan to have 100 million people register.
Country’s top five states for NIN holders are Lagos (10.52 million), Kano (8.32 million), Kaduna (5.61 million), Ogun (3.97 million), and Oyo (3.75 million). Bayelsa (602,705), Ebonyi (762,993), Ekiti (982,264), Cross River (1.09 million), and lastly Taraba have (1.40 million) NINs, respectively. NIMC predicts that with NIN enrollment and compliance widespread throughout the country, the National Identity Database could serve as the central repository for all personal information, including but not limited to demographic information, fingerprints, and passport photos. This would provide simple access to individual data at all levels.
So far there has been a rise shown, especially in 2022, is attributable to the government’s efforts to have all Nigerians register for the NIN. As part of the attempt, the government issued a rule prohibiting any Nigeria telecom line from making calls without a NIN. Through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the federal government has mandated the linking of SIM registration data to the National Identity Number Database. The federal government has also recently unveiled a plan to have 100 million people register for NIN over the next three years.
Nigeria is collaborating with the World Bank to boost NIN holders.
The NIMC spearheads a large registration campaign to help resolve the country’s data deficiency. During the next three years, the goal is to enroll 2.5 million new members each and every month. Nigeria is collaborating with the World Bank to boost the number of individuals in the country who have a NIN. Solomon Odole, the project coordinator for the ‘Digital Identification for Development Initiative for Nigeria,’ emphasized that the project will solve the NIMC’s poor infrastructure.
Odole said that the project’s goal from the beginning was to unify several different government agencies in Nigeria that deal with identification in some capacity. Among the difficulties is the National Identity Management Commission’s poor infrastructure, which jeopardizes the continuing enrollment of individuals in the NIN process, particularly women, youth, and people with disabilities. There were reportedly several problems with the NIN enrollment process in 2022, including a lengthy server downtime that impacted many people in Nigeria.
Approval received to expand the database to roughly 250 million.
In addition, the Director-General of NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, disclosed in an interview last year that the commission’s current infrastructure could only support 100 million Nigerians. By May of 2022, when 80 million people had registered for the NIN out of the initial 100 million space built earlier, Aziz said the government had granted the go-ahead to expand the database to roughly 250 million. Nonetheless, the government is continuing to make efforts to boost it significantly.
Related Link
NIMC: Website
