Commission Database Hits Over 90 Million National Identity Number Enrollments

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) says the national database has hit over 90 million National Identity Number, (NIN) enrollments.

The Director General NIMC disclose this during his welcome remarks at the one-day roundtable meeting in Abuja organised by Identify for Development (ID4D) for desk officers of the Nigeria Digital Identification Project’s ecosystem implementing partners.

Aliyu who represented, the Director of Public Services NIMC, Ibrahim Abdullahi, said the new approaches have greatly impacted the huge increase in the national database to the current 90 million

“The unified ID system approach as well as the ecosystem model have had a tremendous positive impact on the enrollment figure. Currently, the National Identity Database has over 90 million (93.5m) records which is a sharp contrast from just 7 million when I assumed office in 2015.” He said.

He noted that “the primary aim of the strategic roadmap for digital identification in Nigeria, is to simplify the approach to identification through simple data collection process and a centralized unique identification system for Nigeria and legal residents. This is a sharp contrast to the fragmented multi-issuing ID agencies of the past.”

He, therefore, stressed “the need to put in place deliberate and long-term plans to chart new pathways that prioritise national projects, build resilience, explore emerging trends and capitalise on opportunities inherent in a unified ID system in order to reposition our country economically as well as productively.”

The National Coordinator of ID4D, Musa Idole highlighted the importance of the meeting and that of the project.

“The idea of desk officers was to ensure a single point of contact with each of the ecosystem implementing partners, to ensure that our partners do not miss out on any important step in the project implementation.

“The Nigeria Digital ID4D is a project, jointly funded by the World Bank, European Investment Bank, and the French Development Agency.

On the Objectives of the Project Development, Mr. Idole explained that this is to increase the number of persons with a National Identity Number (NIN), issued by a robust and inclusive foundational Identity system that facilitates their access to services.

“By design, the project will promote transparency and accountability, participation, grievance redress and regular monitoring to improve operational performance and mitigation of identified social risks.

“The project will establish a national consultation mechanism, to sustain dialogue with stakeholders and marginalized groups to receive feedback that would improve project implementation.”

He gave the assurance that “we are taking deliberate steps to ensure that the challenge of inter-agency rivalry is a thing of the past. It is in the overriding interest of Nigeria that institutions of government collaborate.

“We, therefore, call for synergy among all public institutions in Nigeria, particularly, those involved in the country’s ID ecosystem. We seek your collaboration and active participation in the project implementation.”

Director Database NIMC, Olufemi Fabunmi, during the questions and answers section said, NIMC will increase its server capacity to 250m “ABTS license upgrade from 100m to 250m”, “NIMC is close to the 100 million database capacity and the commission will soon deploy equipment to increase the capacity to between 250m.” 

Olusola Akintonde