We need 4,000 centres, not 1,000, for nationwide registration —NIMC boss

DIRECTOR-General of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Aliyu Aziz,  has admitted that the commission lacked the capacity to cope with the upsurge for enrollment in the last few weeks, saying the NIMC has 1,000 centres nationwide instead of the over 4,000 enrollment centres required for the exercise.

He corroborated the position of JAMB Registrar, Professor Is’haq Oloyede, that the purpose of the collaboration was to eliminate fraud and examination malpractices related to identity.

Aziz emphasised that it was the role of the government to provide proof of legal identity in the form of unique digital identity for citizens to enable them access to services, rights and protection.

He said: “The upsurge and demand for NIN within the limited centres and facilities have caused us to review and rethink, for us to consider a shift in the commencement date for the use of NIN as a prerequisite for JAMB examination registration.

“This is to give more to time to intending applicants to obtain NIN, roll out more registration centres and equipment nationwide under the digital identity ecosystem and provide identity authentication and verification services anytime anywhere.”

“Though we have about two million JAMB registers but when they come to our centres, they come with their parents and siblings to say that let’s do this thing once. We calculated and it results to like 10 million people coming to our centres within a short period of time.

“We have only 1,000 centres and based on the standard, we are supposed to have at least 4,000 centres. In the coming year, with the Ecosystem in place, we believe that we will have more than 10,000 centres across the country to eliminate all the rush,” he said.

The DG noted that from JAMB’s data, over 15 per cent of applicants are in Lagos while the other states have less than five per cent, adding that the crowd in Lagos was like four times the other states.

He appealed to the public to register to obtain the NIN within the timeline to avoid any future enforcement drive.