Extortion galore at Lagos NIN centres, WAEC, JAMB candidates stranded

SUBAIR MOHAMMED writes on the frustration, disappointment and large-scale extortion ruling the NIN registration and modification exercise in Nigeria’s most populous state.

FRUSTRATION, desperation and disappointment have continued to dominate emotions at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) registration centres across Lagos State, as touts extort stranded residents who have urgent need for the National Identification Number (NIN).

A survey carried out by Saturday Tribune showed that applicants for fresh registration and those who have issues with their registration are at the mercy of the officials of NIMC who handle the NIN registration nationwide.

An NIMC top official who spoke to Saturday Tribune on condition of anonymity on Wednesday blamed desperate applicants for patronising touts.

 

Jeopardising their future

Hundreds of applicants, including prospective Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) candidates, troop to NIMC offices in the state on a daily basis to get enrolled for NIN.

For WAEC and JAMB registrations, NIN is a prerequisite while others require the identity number to resolve issues relating to biodata such as misspelt names, date of birth, gender mix-ups, amongst others.

Saturday Tribune discovered through the monitoring of some registration centres that many WAEC and JAMB applicants are unable to get their biometrics captured for NIN due to technical glitches, with vendors demanding between N3,000 and N12,000 from applicants to be registered.

Some parents and applicants expressed their frustration and lamented extortion by NIMC officials at various local government areas in the state.

A mother, Mrs Olayemi, feared for her daughter missing out on this year’s West African Examination Council’s (WAEC) examinations.

According to her, she has been making efforts to get her registered for NIN but she was allegedly told at Ikotun-Igando and Isolo LCDAs that the officials were not around when she visited.

Despite having paid her daughter’s WAEC fee since December 2023, she said she was yet to be registered for the examination due to her inability to be enrolled for NIN.

She explained her frustration: “I have been suffering to get my daughter enrolled for the NIN to no avail. We have been at it since December when I paid her WAEC fee.

“Her school’s proprietor (a private school and identity concealed) promised to get all students in SS3 registered with the payment of N12,000. All of a sudden, he announced that since no parent paid for the NIN enrolment, everybody should register individually.

“Since then, we have been going from one local government to another. At the Isolo LCDA, I was told that NIN registration has been put on hold. At a private shop in Ikotun, the owner demanded for N14,000 for the registration, saying that I would have to wait till February 19 for my daughter to be captured.

“The deadline for WAEC registration is February. My fear is that my daughter might miss this year’s WAEC as a result of her inability to be enrolled for NIN. As I speak, we haven’t done it. We are waiting to be called upon on February 19.”

Her daughter, Sofiah, said only three out of the 23 students in her class have not been registered for NIN.

However, of the 20 students who were registered, the personal information of 10 could not be retrieved from the NIMC database, hence their inability to register for WAEC.

Sofiah said: “Whenever they dialed *346# to retrieve their NIN, an error message propped up. This means that although they have been registered, they were not captured in the NIMC database.

“This means that the registration they did was fake. So, they couldn’t be registered for WAEC. My mummy and I went to a shop at Ikotun, the shop owner told us to come back on February 19 when registration for WAEC would have closed.”

 

N5,000 to jump queue

In Isolo LCDA, Mrs Ayoku Ajala narrated how she parted with N4,000 to get her NIN card changed from old to new.

She said: “I have been going from one local government to another without any headway until someone connected me to an official of NIMC at the Isolo Local Government secretariat. When I got there, the man told me it would cost me N5,000 to change my NIN card. According to him, the NIN card I had was an old one that needed to be renewed to be valid.

“I pleaded with him to accept N4,000 which he did and the card was issued about two weeks after.”

An NIN applicant at Ojo town in Ojo Local Government Area, Shehu Lawal, said he had issues with his bank concerning his middle name which required him to provide his NIN to be rectified.

According to him, he approached the NIMC registration centre for the correction of his name only for him to be confronted with a mammoth crowd and massive extortion of applicants by touts.

He said: “I went to the NIMC centre at Ojo Local Government secretariat in Lagos to be registered for NIN. I met a huge crowd which discouraged me but considering the urgency and importance of the NIN, I felt I would be delayed if I had to join the long queue so I decided to visit the NIMC centre at the Lagos State University (LASU) campus.

“The situation was no different. The crowd there was even bigger than the one I met at Ojo secretariat.

“There were many secondary school leavers who wanted to be enrolled to be able to register for JAMB and SSCE. I think NIN is a requirement.

“The three NIMC officials at LASU took advantage of the situation to exploit the applicants. If you want to be attended to quickly, then you have to part with at least N5,000. Many of the applicants paid this amount because they needed the NIN urgently.

“Even if NIN will be made mandatory for WAEC registration, can’t it be done at the point of registering for WAEC? Why do those in government subject us to stress to get things done in this country?

“Again, the officials are not helping matters. The government needs to address this issue in order not to deny the students the opportunity to enroll for WAEC and JAMB.

“The import of this is that it is only those that are able to pay that would be attended to. For those that couldn’t afford the money, they would keep coming.”

A useless warning

Boldly displayed at the entrance of the NIMC office is a banner with an inscription warning NIN applicants against patronising vendors who wander around the facility for “customers”.

The inscription reads, “All payments are to be made via remita only. Do not pay money to staff or any other persons for any services and report any cases of extortion or complaints.”

Despite this warning, vendors charge amounts ranging from N3,000 to N5,000 for NIN registration and N25,000 for data modification.

A former employee of a Lagos-based newspaper, Moshood, had issues with his biodata that needed an urgent modification.

To achieve this, he moved straight to the NIMC office in Alausa, Ikeja, where he was told by a vendor that to get his date of birth modified, he had to pay N25,000.

According to him, he was given two options, fast-track or follow the official process which would take at least eight weeks after data capturing.

He said: “I had issues which required an urgent modification on my NIN. I was told it could only be corrected at the NIMC office or registration centres situated across local government areas. So I felt it would be faster at Alausa since it is NIMC head office in Lagos.

“At Lagos NIMC office, I was approached by a vendor. He demanded N25,000 to get my date of birth rectified within five working days. I tried to negotiate the amount but he insisted on N25,000 which obviously I couldn’t afford. I never thought it would be this difficult to correct an error on my biodata.

“My date of birth was wrongly documented and it has to be corrected for me to be able to access my pension fund. NIMC needs to simplify this process so that vendors would not use it to exploit applicants.”

When Saturday Tribune visited the Alausa office to get Mrs Ejiofor’s response to the allegations of large-scale extortion and racketeering by vendors in collaboration with her officials, she was said to be unavailable.

However, an official of the commission who craved anonymity said measures had been taken to curb extortion and vending.

The official stated that there were different instructions in the compound stating that touts should not be patronised and encouraging those who have business to do with the agency to come straight into the compound for assistance and clarification.

Speaking further on the situation, the official disclosed that the Inspectorate and Enforcement Unit (IEU) was set up to deal with issues currently affecting the registration process.

Applicants looked weary in long queues when Saturday Tribune visited on Friday with many discovered to have been there for hours unattended to.

Seats are provided for applicants who need them, pending when they would be called to take their turn.

NIMC officials were seen attending to applicants in a particular order, which didn’t suggest first-come-first-served.

 

A journalist’s encounter

A journalist (name withheld) who had a recent encounter with officials of Lagos NIMC told Saturday Tribune that the desperation to enroll for NIN or get correction done on biodata has turned the officials to tin gods.

The journalist said: “Recently, I had a reason to be at the Alausa head office of NIMC and couldn’t believe how Nigerians are being treated there in the name of getting national identification number.

“While some reasonable people are among the officials, especially at the window point where enquiries can be made, there are simply some men and women there that have no business relating with members of the public.

“The place needs to be sanitised now that a new director general has been appointed for the agency, who also happens to be from Lagos.

“If she wants to succeed, she must first bring sanity to the Lagos main office and other centres across the state, considering that the state is mini-Nigeria. I understand that crass nepotism in public service has led to public officials having one godfather or the other, but nobody would ask her if she was restrained by a certain godfather from firing errant officials.

“She would be basically judged by how Nigerians are served during her tenure and it is the acts of the same officials that would be eventually used to rate her performance in office.

“I must add that physically-challenged applicants seem to get better deals from them, especially when they look well-to-do. There is also a stocky fellow named Bayo who paraded himself as a stickler for order and due process. I feel I should mention this so it doesn’t appear that all the official are being tarred.”

Additional report by SEGUN KASALI.