89 million Nigerians have been captured under the National Identity Number (NIN) enrolment.
This was disclosed by the Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr Aliyu Aziz, at a press conference ahead of the 4th National Identity Day scheduled for Friday in Abuja.
Aziz stated that this is a rise of 82 million compared to 7 million in 2015.
He noted that the theme of this year’s 4th National Identity Day would be ‘Traditional Institutions as Critical Stakeholders for Citizens Mobilization’, citing that the registration numbers are up by 82 million from the seven million he met when he assumed office in November 2015.
“In this year’s Identity Day, we are partnering with the traditional institutions and their leaders to create awareness on NIN enrolment.
”Since then, we have been growing the database at the average of two to three million monthly.
”The 89 million are the mainstream people so there are still remaining the local people in villages, petty traders, market people and artisan in rural areas across the country. NIN is the right of everyone,” he said.
He added that NIN is a tool for empowerment and greater use of digital Identity can help bring development and coordination for better delivery of government services. He stated that the NIMC had increased its equipment upgrade from 1000 to 29,000 nationwide, urging the new enrollees to always go with literate people to reduce errors in the process of their enrolment.
He also disclosed that the NIMC charges some stipends for modification of biodata of enrollees, however, reiterated that the enrolment was free for every citizen and legal residents.
Aziz noted that a strong national identity system was vital to building a viable economy and nation and called for intensive birth registrations by all in the country aimed at providing legal identity for all by 2030 in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
It was reported last year June that the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said that only 57.3 million Nigerians have so far done their National Identity Management (NIN) registration out of the 200 million population in the country.
