By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said in 2023, it issued 104.16 million National Identification Numbers (NIN) to Nigerians, 10.8 per cent more than the 94.03 million in December 2022.
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.
Others 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 with 3.13 million; Delta with 2.79 million and Bauchi with 2.76 million.
The NIMC data showed 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 per cent of Nigerians so far captured in the NIN database are male while 45.04 million, representing 43.2 per cent of the total enrollees are female.
The country is still far from the 148 million World Bank’s target under the Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project. The lender noted that by June 2024, the country should have enrolled at least 148 million, a feat that looks impossible in the next six months.
Following the assumption of office late last year, Mrs Abisoye Coker-Odusote, the new Director General of the 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.
