Strong indications have emerged showing that the original performance target of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in driving National Identification Number (NIN) registration in the country since 2016 has failed.
This was discovered when latest revelation from the Director-General of the NIMC, Engr Aliyu Aziz, that only 38 million Nigerians have been captured in NIN.
A trackback by Business Hilights to a statement by the Corporate Communications of the agency currently on the its website, showed that as at Wednesday January 10, 2018, NIMC has enrolled 28 million Nigerians into the National Identity Database and issued them the National Identification Number (NIN) and has a national performance target of registering not less than 78m by December 2018.
The statement issued on January 29, 2018 said “While announcing the figure, the Director General/CEO of the Commission, Engr. Aziz also set a new target to enrol additional 50 million Nigerians and legal residents as well as issue them the NIN by December, 2018.
In December, 2016 when the enrolment figure stood at only 14 million, the NIMC DG had set the target to double the figure so as to capture 28 million Nigerians and legal residents into the database by December 2017, a target that was met few days after the end of December 2017.
Though he did not openly agree on Monday, while addressing parties at a Pre-Bid Conference for Prospective Data Collection Service Providers on the Digital Identity Ecosystem Project that the agency failed in its set targets, Aziz noted that with the involvement of private service providers in the project, it was expected that the enrolment centres would rise to 10,000 and further boost enrolment.
Recall that the Digital Identity Ecosystem Project seeks to license private sector organisations to enroll Nigerians on the NIN, under the supervision of the NIMC even though some security analysts say the move may compromise the originality of the emerging national database.
Continuing, Aziz said with the expected success of the emerging synergy with the private sector, the commission was targeting that all Nigerians would be fully enrolled in the next three years.
“So far, we have enrolled 38 million Nigerians out of 200 million.
“We are licensing the service providers to provide the service and we believe that with our 1,000 centres now, with the private sector coming in, we can have up to 10,000 centres and that means that in any ward, you will be able to have access to enrolment.
“Every enrolment machine is capable of enrolling about 100 people in a day. And it means that in the next three years, we will be able to enrol every person.”
