A server problem, which the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said it had rectified in February, is frustrating many Nigerians as they are unable to use their National Identification Numbers for electronic passport application and other things, BusinessDay has learnt.
Experts say the glitches may have also been due to the current fuel scarcity and the rising cost of diesel, which are affecting many government offices including the NIMC, an agency under the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. The deadline for the National Identification Number (NIN) registration has been repeatedly postponed by the government.
Many Nigerians have complained that despite having obtained NIN, they could not carry out the renewal of their international passports, driver’s licence, and bank account opening, among other services.
In many cases, people said they had completed the registration at NIMC registration centres only to get to the passport office or the bank to be told their NIN is yet to “drop” into the national system.
An applicant who has been attempting to renew his passport said he has been trying to complete his verification process in the last three days but has failed to despite imputing his NIN.
He said the last email he got from the passport office was “The reasons for the failed verification are given below: There is an error with NIMC, please contact support.”
According to the applicant, the system breakdown has been that way in the last three days.
“The situation is affecting everyone and everything here. The situation is the same in Abuja. Since this week, whether you are for the first issuance or renewal of a passport, when it gets to NIN verification, the process stops. The work piles up; the production also halts,” the applicant told BusinessDay.
As of March 2022, the NIMC has issued 77.1 million unique NIN. This will mean that the number of Nigerians without NIN now stand at 126.7 million. Should the authorities not extend the registration, this could mean millions of Nigeria will not be able to get a new passport or renew their old passports, among other things.
Several calls by BusinessDay to NIMC’s public relations executives were not answered. In February, following several days of glitches and poor services, the commission admitted in a statement that its server was temporarily unavailable “due to maintenance service being carried out by one of the commission’s network service providers.”
After more than a week, the commission claimed the service was restored which allowed people to continue their registrations. But a lot of people have also told BusinessDay that despite successfully registering, they were still not able to complete their passport issuance process because the identification numbers were yet to drop in their profile. This is also affecting people attempting to activate new SIMs or get a driver’s licence.
“I’ve registered for NIN and I’ve been given NIN but my network service providers are claiming that my NIN failed NIMC verification,” said Wale Babalola.
Tosin Olugbenga, CEO of Afridex Finance, said the glitches also affected students who are preparing for JAMB examinations.
“Many students who registered for NIN weeks ago, got their slips printed but when they want to register for JAMB, the NIN is invalid. NIMC always complaining that the server is down. Why are you making NIN compulsory when you people are not ready to put the right system in place?” Olugbenga tweeted.
Joy Eze, another applicant who is affected by the development, told BusinessDay that she had completed all other processes and was only waiting to get a verification message from NIM but that had lingered for the last two days, halting her travel plans.
“I had planned to travel out in three days’ time since all other processes towards renewing my passport have been completed, only to be delayed by the NIMC verification. This will really affect my travel plans as there are no signs the system glitch would be resolved anytime soon,” Eze said.
A staff member at the Ikoyi passport office who pleaded anonymity confirmed the delay in the NIN synchronisation process across Nigeria had been on for a while.
The worker said, “NIMC has been having problems and this has continued to linger. I believe they are having some challenges and it is affecting our operations in the office at the moment. We really feel for applicants this period because they are not able to process their passports.
“There is nothing we at the passport office can do to help the situation. We have been trying to reach out to NIMC to know what is actually happening. There is a limit to what we at NIS can do. We only gave the NIMC office space here at Ikoyi to ease our operations. The issue at hand can only be resolved by NIMC. We cannot get involved.”
Some experts said on condition of anonymity said the NIMC might not have adequately prepared its systems for the millions of people registering for the NIN.
With 77.1 million Nigerians registered so far, the experts said the NIMC servers might be overworked, hence the repeated postponement of the registration exercise which is aimed at giving the commission the opportunity to improve its capacity.
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It wasn’t until 2022 that the Federal Government increased the budget of the NIMC. Prior to 2022, the commission’s budget was between N400 million to N500 million, which largely went to recurrent expenditure rather than upgrading its systems to meet up with the new mandate of registering all Nigerians within the age of 18.
As a result of the inadequate financial resources, the commission intermittently down tools from workers protesting lack of payment or inadequate remuneration.
In 2022, the government jerked up the commission’s budget to N5 billion to enable the NIMC to meet up with its needs and mandate in line with the present reality in the sector.
For Nigerians looking to get new or renew their passports, the situation is also compounded by the continual passport scarcity across Nigeria.
In Lagos and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, many applicants have been waiting for months for their passports, which they had applied for, paid for and had also been captured in the database, but are unable to obtain their passports because booklets are scarce.
Some people have missed out on opportunities such as scholarships, study, medicals, child delivery, business engagements and investment opportunities, while waiting to obtain their passports.
BusinessDay gathered that passports are currently scarce because the government owes its technical partners abroad huge debts running into millions of dollars
The Ministry of Interior has a public-private partnership agreement with a foreign company, Irish Technologies, which produces the enhanced e-passport, but it has refused to supply the product due to the alleged huge debts.
BusinessDay, during a recent visit to the Ikoyi passport office, the busiest passport office in Lagos, observed a long queue of angry and worried applicants waiting to obtain their passports.
