The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said it has issued the National Identification Number (NIN) to 104.16 million Nigerians as of December 31, 2023.
The Commission disclosed this in its NIN enrolment data just released. The figure shows that a total of 10.13 million NINs were issued throughout last year. As of December 2022, the NIN database stood at 94.03 million.
Despite a World Bank target of 148 million by June 2024—less than six months from now—registration for the NIN has been slow. However, with the recent appointment of a new Director-General, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, NIMC said it has started working to accelerate the issuance of the digital identity token in line with the renewed hope mandate of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Lagos maintains lead
According to the NIMC data, Lagos State maintained the top spot by recording the highest number of enrolments in the country with 11.42 million Nigerians captured in the State. This was followed by Kano State, which recorded 9.19 million registered NINs. The two most populous states in Nigeria, according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics have maintained the lead in NIN enrolment since the beginning of the exercise.
- Aside from Lagos and Kano, other states that made the top ten in terms of the number of enrolments include Kaduna with 6.45 million; Ogun with 4.40 million; Oyo with 4.04 million; Katsina with 3.54 million; FCT with 3.51 million; Rivers 3.13 million; Delta 2.79 million and Bauchi with 2.76 million.
- NIMC data shows that the 10 states with the lowest NIN issued are Kwara with 1.77 million, Akwa-Ibom with 1.76 million, Kogi with 1.73 million, Enugu with 1.67 million, Yobe with 1.65 million, Taraba with 1.49 million, Cross River 1.19 million, Ekiti 1.02 million, Ebonyi 839,506, and Bayelsa 657,484.
In terms of the gender distribution of the enrollees, the NIMC data reveals that 59.12 million, representing 56.8% of Nigerians so far captured in the NIN database are male. On the flip side, 45.04 million, representing 43.2% of the total enrollees are female.
World Bank’s target
Despite the 10 million plus new NIN registrations recorded in 2023, the country is still far from the 148 million World Bank’s target under the Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project.
Under the project terms, Nigeria is expected to have issued 148 million NIN by June 2024.
Even with an average of 1 million enrolments monthly, Nigeria was not certain to meet the deadline which is now less than six months.
Aside from issuing NIN to 148 million Nigerians by June this year, the Bank listed other targets to include the issuance of NIN to at least 65 million female Nigerians by June 1, 2024, as well as 50 million NIN to children under 16 years of age.
