Will NIMC meet 148 million NIN enrollment target by 2024?

Following the ongoing nationwide rush for NIN enrolment and the attendant NIN-SIM linkage among other government-funded policies and programmes, IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI takes a  look at the issues that will make or mar NIMC’s target to enrol 148 million by 2024.

The National Identification Management Commission (NIMC)  was established by the NIMC Act No. 23 of 2007 to establish, own, operate, maintain and manage the National Identity Database in Nigeria, register persons covered by the Act, assign a unique National Identity Number (NIN) and issue General Multi-Purpose Cards (GMPC) to those who are citizens of Nigeria as well as others legally residing within the country.

The national identity database and registration for the eleven-digit NIN which identifies Nigerians using biometric data and other details were kickstarted in August 2011 to, among others, enhance the work of security agencies in the country, according to former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Aside from noting that Nigeria cannot be an exception to the global trend toward identity management and a centralised national identity database, Jonathan stated that there was the need to harmonise and integrate all the country’s identity databases, hence the national identification programme.

The former president received his own National Electronic (e-ID) card on Thursday, August 28, 2014, a development that heralded the official launch of the e-ID pilot program in the country. In furtherance of this, the former president gave the NIMC a marching order to enrol all Nigerians on the NIMC database by December 31, 2014, in line with Section 16 of the NIMC Act No. 23, of 2007.

By the end of 2014, only 5,038,470 Nigerians had been enrolled on the database and issued NINs. This paltry figure could be attributed to public cynicism, lack of proper and adequate education of citizens, unfavourable perception of the identity sector, extortion and corruption that have continued to greet the national ID programme. Some residents were reported to have attributed their nonchalant attitude toward the registration to the failure to see the need for it.

 

NIN is compulsory for all

To boost NIN enrolment, the Jonathan presidency and the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari further instituted policies to encourage and enforce the continued enrolment of NIN and its compulsory use to access government programmes. Most prominent among these actions of FG is the inclusion of the mandatory use of NIN in the official government gazette in 2017. This is aside from the fact that Section 27 of the NIMC Act makes NIN compulsory for all Nigerians and even provides for a stiffer sentence for those who access government programmes without the eleven-digit NIN.

As of today, scores of government programmes including workers’ registration under the Contributory Pension Scheme, application for and ownership of a driver’s licence, opening and operating a bank account, accessing health insurance, filing tax returns, registering for and writing the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) exams, voting during the elections and most recently, boarding trains as well as making phone calls cannot be done without a valid NIN.

It is believed that these have yielded positive results given the relatively huge increase in NIN enrollments over the years. The yearly NIN enrolment performance data provided by NIMC shows that 57,841 NINs were issued in 2012, the figure increased astronomically in 2013 by 1883.34% as 1,147,181 NINs were issued bringing the total NIN enrolments to 1,147,181 by year-end. Yearly enrolment increased by 234.16% in 2014 as 3,833,448 NINs were issued in the year.

The figure, however, dropped by -42.54% in 2015 as 2,202,818 NINs were issued by year-end. It rose again by 237.33% in 2016 and 72.41% in 2017 as 7,430,820 and 12,811,147 NINs were issued respectively by year-end.

The year-long issuance of NINs again dropped by -52.51% (6,083,446), -4.06% (5,836,663) and -14.03% (5,017,806) in 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively.

 

The great leap

In the first five months of the year 2021 alone, NIN issuance rose against the year-long issuance of 2020 by 104.70% as 10,271,266 Nigerians were issued with the NINs nationwide and in the diaspora. The figure as of that time was only second to the year-long 2017 enrolment where a little over 12 million NINs were issued.

The yearly enrolment figure for the 12 months in the year 2021 was at least 28 million, according to the NIMC. This figure conveniently doubles the 2017 enrolments. However, the NIN enrolments in 2021 in addition to the allegedly missing 7.9 million records – which the commission has since denied – stand at over 35 million.

In a statement issued in response to our first analysis, Head of Corporate Communications at the NIMC, Kayode Adegoke, noted that the NIMC database was intact and impregnable and as such no NIN was lost. However, NIN data on the NIMC website and media reports say otherwise.

Nonetheless, the huge increase recorded in late 2020 and 2021 may not be unconnected to the Federal Government pronouncement through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in December 2020, which directed all telecommunication providers to link the about 300 million Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) owned by Nigerians at that time to each person’s unique NIN by December 30, 2020 – this date was reviewed over eight times before about 75 million SIMs were disconnected and barred from making calls in late February 2022.

Though the NCC directive, according to the government, was made to curtail the rising spread of kidnapping for ransom in some parts of the country and facilitate the tracking down of suspects, it caused a huge spike in the enrolment figures of the country. As of December 2020 when the order was given, only 43,000,000 NIN records were on the NIMC database. Twelve months later, at least 28 million new records at 65.12% were added to the database, according to NIMC, bringing the figure to 71 million in December 2021.

Over 82.73 million Nigerians have been enrolled nationwide on the national identity database as of May 26, 2022. Of this data, 36,173,574 women representing 43.72 percent and 46,564,578 million men representing 56.28 per cent have been captured across the 36 states, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and in the diaspora after almost eleven years of compulsory NIN enrolment nationwide.

The sudden and consistent rise in NIN enrollment could also be attributed to the increase in the number of enrolment centres across the country and in the diaspora. In February 2021, NIMC had 1,060 enrollment centres; these later rose by 1220.75% to  14,000 in December 2021. Similarly, there are now 152 enrolment centres in 38 countries in the diaspora as of March 23, 2022, resulting in 176,895 Nigerians – 78,133 females and 98,762 men – in the diaspora as of May 26, 2022.

 

Unsatisfied workforce and NIMC’s self-reliance

The seemingly laudable strides of NIMC have been achieved off the sweat and backs of its staff members. While NIMC staff members, over the years, complained of poor welfare and the underfunding of the commission, NIN enrollees equally accused the NIMC officials of extortion, back dealing among other vices during NIN enrolments.

Recall that during the pandemic and amid the nationwide rush for enrolment and NIN-SIM linkage, the staff of NIMC embarked on a strike in protest on January 7, 2021, against poor staff welfare and their exposure to COVID-19 during the compulsory NIN enrollment. About seven months later, the Federal Government approved a new condition of service and salary scale which raised the total NIMC personnel cost by 200 per cent.

Earlier in the same year, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami tweeted: “My strategic mission for NIMC is to ensure the commission is self-reliant and generates the money it needs for smooth operation without having to depend on the federal government for budgetary allocation.”

Pantami’s statement raised questions among stakeholders as to how NIMC is expected to generate funding when its only product is the protection of the country’s critical identity database.

 

The 148 million World Bank NIN target

In 2020, the FG secured a World Bank credit facility of $430 million for the NIMC under the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development (DI4D). The project seeks to increase the number of persons enrolled for NIN from 36,894,074 as of October 11, 2019, to 148 million by June 1, 2024. Parts of the DI4D targets also include enrolling 65 million women and girls as well as 50 million children under the age of 16 by that date.

In spite of this external funding, NIN enrolments grew sparingly from October 2019 as only about six million NIN records were added to the NIMC database by December 2020 – after 14 months – representing a 16.22% increase.

The enrollment figures also rose in subsequent months as at least over 28 million persons were enrolled in 2021.

With over 36 million women already enrolled on the database in May 2022, the NIMC has achieved 55.65% of the DI4D target of enrolling 65 million women by June 2024. This means the agency has exactly two years left to enrol the remaining 65,261,848 Nigerians including 28,826,426 women, according to the DI4D target.

These aforementioned areas of concern, particularly inadequate funding, the allegedly missing 7.9 million NIN records, and failure to meet the initial December 2014 deadline, raise doubts about whether the NIMC will meet the World Bank target by June 2024 and ultimately dim the hope of enrolling all Nigerians on the NIMC database anytime soon.

Speaking with the Saturday Tribune on the number of enrollees in correlation with the country’s population, a lawyer and digital rights advocate, Bukola Oyaleke,  said: “The government should do more in the area of power supply, broadband connectivity, awareness and sensitisation among other related challenges serving as clog in the wheel of the success of the policy with a view to ensuring that the intention of introducing the policy is achieved in line with international best practices of delivering faster and better coordinated implementation of identity services delivery.”

He further urged the NIMC to issue identity cards to confirmed enrollees who are currently being issued temporary NIN slips in place of the ID cards for many years now including himself who enrolled in 2014.

This report was produced under the Dataphyte Data and Development Reporting Fellowship 2022.