82.73 Million Nigerians Now Have NIN – NIMC

Bukola Olanrewaju June 9, 2022 TECHNOLOGY Leave a comment

…Says 7.9 million NIN records not missing

About in the first five month of the year, about 10.3 million Nigerians have been issued National Identification Numbers, data obtained from the National Identity Management Commission’s (NIMC) portal have shown.

This brings the total number of Nigerians with NINs to 82.73 million as of May 26, 2022. The data on the NIMC’s portal showed that as of January 1, 2022, there were 72.7 million Nigerians with NINs.

It added that the number of unique NIN grew to 75.36 million as of February 21; 77.1 million unique NINs were recorded as of March 21; and 80.7 million as of April 23.

The data reveals that NIMC issues an average of two million NINs per month which is consistent with what the Director-General of the NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, recently disclosed in an interview on the Frontiers Show on the Nigerian Television Authority monitored by The PUNCH.

Also Read:

According to him, the commission has the capacity to issue about three million NINs monthly. He added that the present capacity of the agency could accommodate only 100 million Nigerians.

Also Read: NDPB Tasks NIMC to Upscale Data Protection Process to Earn Citizens Trust

He had said, “We built it (the database) to cater for a 100 million. Right now, we are at eighty million. Also, we have the government’s approval to upgrade it. So, before we reach there, we must have upgraded to about 250 million.

“So, we don’t have issues with that. Most of the time, our major challenges are either power or the bandwidth of the connectivity that we have but not the infrastructure.

With the total number of issued NINs hitting 82.73 million, about 14.77 million telecommunication subscribers still do not have NINs.

According to GSMA, the global body of telecom operators worldwide, there were 97.5 million unique mobile subscribers in Nigeria as of September 2018.

Based on a recent Federal Government directive, the subscribers have not been able to make outgoing calls on their lines as a result of the implementation of the government’s SIM-NIN policy.

However, reacting to losing 7.9 million NIN records, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has reassured Nigerians that its database remained intact and impenetrable and no NIN records are missing.

This is contained in a statement signed by the Head, Corporate Communications, NIMC, Kayode Adegoke in Abuja

Also, a lawyer and digital rights advocate, Bukola Oyaleke said in a media report said, while noting that it may not be safe yet to conclude that NIMC lost over 7.9 million NIN records, said that the alleged loss of data, if found to be true, shows that the country lacks the culture of proper record keeping which will negatively affect the country’s credibility, integrity and image at the international level.

“It re-affirms the age-long problem inherent in Africa generally, and in Nigeria in particular as it borders on the issue of lack of proper record-keeping,” he said while citing instances of loss of records in the health and judiciary sectors in times past.

“If we, as a country through the NIN enrolment exercise cannot keep proper records of our activities and the persons that have registered thus far in the process, how do we want these donors to have confidence in the system and the policy that would further encourage the donors to do more in supporting and or partnering with the government,” he added.