241,110 Nigerians abroad got NIN in 2022 – Report
AREWA AGENDA – Two hundred and forty-one thousand, one hundred and ten diaspora Nigerians got National Identification Numbers in 2022 according to industry statistics from the National Identity Management Commission.
This brought the total number of diaspora Nigerians with NIN to 319,260 as of the end of 2022, a number that has since risen to 335,353 as of January 22, 2023.
The NIMC did not give a breakdown of the countries the registered Nigerians reside in. In 2019, NIMC started a diaspora enrolment exercise to capture Nigerians living outside the country into the National Identity Database.
While NIN registration is free in Nigeria, it is paid for outside the shores of the country.
Meanwhile 21.33 million registered for NIN in 2022. This is as the total number of individuals with NIN rose from 72.7 million as of January 1, 2022 to 94.03 million as of December 31, 2022. Also, as of January 22, 2023, the database had recorded 1.04 million new registrations to hit 95.07 million.
On the figures for January 2023, NIMC stated, “NIMC’s enrolment figures as of January 22, 2023, currently stand at over 95.07 million unique records.
“The highest cumulative enrolment figure of over 10.51 million was recorded in Lagos State. Regional figures indicated an almost equal distribution across the North and South.”
According to the data, 53.68 million males and 41.40 million females now have NINs. The 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).
The top bottom states for NIN holders are Bayelsa (602,705), Ebonyi (762,993), Ekiti (982,264), Cross-River (1.09 million), and Taraba (1.40 million).
According to NIMC, NIN would ultimately become the melting point for all records about an individual, demographic data, fingerprints, head-to-shoulder facial picture, other biometric data, and digital signature in the National Identity Database, to easily confirm and verify an individual’s identity when they want to travel and carry out transactions.
Every Nigerian is expected to get a NIN. In 2022, Nigerians without NINs were barred from making calls from the telecommunication lines.
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The Federal Government recently revealed a plan to enroll 100 million individuals in three years. In the National Development Plan 2021-2025, the government said, “Identity management has remained a tasking issue for several administrations.
“There is paucity of data despite several agencies collecting identity data for their operations in Nigeria. The latest of these is the Nigerian Communications Commission linking SIM Registration Data to the National Identity Number Database. NIMC plans to register an additional 100 million people in three years and has embarked on a massive registration drive. The plan is to enroll 2.5 million people monthly for the next three years.”
Nigeria and the World Bank have a partnership called the ‘Digital Identification for Development Project for Nigeria’ to increase the number of persons with a national ID number in the country.
The Project Coordinator, Nigeria Digital Identification for Development, Solomon Odole, stated that the project would address the inadequate infrastructure of the NIMC.
He said, “The project has made adequate provisions for financing institutional capacity development, aimed at building trust and credibility within the country’s ID ecosystem.
“Since it became effective in December 2021, Nigeria ID4D had sought to address the pervasive fragmentation of the Nigerian identification ecosystem, with no fewer than 13 public institutions providing some form of identification services; inadequate infrastructure of the National Identity Management Commission that poses a risk to the continuous enrolment of people, notably women, youth and persons living with disability.”
In 2022, the NIN enrolment process had many issues including a prolonged server shutdown that affected many Nigerians.
Also, within the year, the Director-General, NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, revealed that the commission’s present infrastructure could only accommodate 100 million Nigerians during an interview on the Frontiers Show on the Nigerian Television Authority.
In May 2022, when the number of individuals with NIN was about 80 million, he said, “We built it (the database) to cater for 100 million. Right now, we are at 80 million. Also, we have the government’s approval to upgrade it. So, before we reach there, we must have upgraded to about 250 million.”
He added, “We are trying to upgrade the system. We have got the government’s approval since July last year. We are following up to get the funding. Funding is a challenge, but I don’t want to call it a challenge because it is a challenge for everyone.”
Credit: The Punch
