Jimoh was just a security officer managing electricity supply at the Alausa-Ikeja Lagos office of the National Identification Management Commission (NIMC). He handled the daily switches between power supplied from the national grid and the commission’s generating set. But he covered more than his job descriptions prescribed while the rowdy process of obtaining the national identification number (NIN) as a prerequisite for the University Matriculation Examination (UTME) lasted.
On Friday, January 10, 2020, under the pretext of being an intending candidate of the UTME, this BusinessDay reporter met Jimoh at the entrance of the NIMC office at about 6pm. I had been there for over an hour waiting, begging security personnel for a chance to go in to begin my registration. Despite being past official working hours, the veranda was still crowded with so many frustrated students.
Some of the students, like Fisayo Adesoji, had gone through rough nights, stressing hours of queuing in the baking sun and injuries from stampede at enrolment centres. For Adesoji, for instance, it took leaving home by 3:30am to the NIMC centre. In spite of that, he was at number 77 on the list, because many potential students like him had slept over at the office. So, they wanted at all cost to get their names on the list of those to be enrolled. NIMC workers randomly came out to help people they know to access the registration centre without ado. Going late to the commission was part of my plan to affirm the depth of extortion, and it turned out to be an easy task once I had the money to pay.
Jimoh sighted me among the frustrated students and proposed to help me. ‘Help’ is what they call moving enrollees who have paid rapidly up the queue, such that someone listed in the first 20s might end up behind in the list of 90s. Jimoh’s help was to cost N3,000 but he agreed to accept N2,000 after a soft plea. In 10 minutes, he provided me the form, which by then had become exclusive. He took me straight to an office past the central registration hall after filling the form. Offices like this were where those who could pay were sorted in a jiffy. In there was a closely-knit group with a senior officer coordinating the registration. After checking my Biometric Verification Number (BVN), the senior man suspected that it needed special treatment. And in less than five minutes, he generated my NIN, right before I was properly registered and captured.
To convince me that the NIN slip would be ready the following working day which was Monday, Jimoh took me to his office and showed me copies of the forms he had stocked in his bag. The most jaw-dropping part was the original coloured and blank copies of the NIN slip also stashed in his bag for the purpose of his own business.
To see the length he would go to get me the slip, I pushed Jimoh to produce it the following day which was a Saturday, after promising to pay him N1,000 extra. He brought the slip to an agreed bus-stop.
That was the day the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) suspended the use of NIN as a requirement for the 2020 UTME and Direct Entry registrations, bringing to an abrupt end the mad rush to the NIMC enrolment centres across the country.
But with the Federal Government on Wednesday announcing that submission of National Identity Number (NIN) by Nigerians would now be a compulsory requirement for registration and activation of SIM cards, there are fears that the rush would return as well as the extortions.
How NIMC materials get into the hands of non-NIMC officials is not clear but the market for this extortion continues to thrive on a poor and inefficient system of registration that ought to be free.
It’s free. From registration to collection, enrolment for the national identification number is free, messages legibly inked on the walls within the Alausa-Ikeja office of the National Identification Management Commission said. But what was hidden behind that smokescreen of messages was that free meant a sluggish process of toiling in queue for hours, even days, to initiate registration for the NIN. With a code of ethics that is tolerant to all forms of vice like extortion, unruly conduct and forgery, outrageous fees apply to everything free about NIN in a manner that seems to show the NIMC management may be out of tune with the open corruption in their centres across the country.
The shoddy management of the process has raised questions about why citizen-centred projects handled by the government are often clogged by avoidable hardship and inefficiency. From international passport processing to voter card application, people are fleeced to enrol. The trend has become tiring to the public that some Nigerians are beginning to drive initiatives to expose the human and technical inadequacies fuelling the problem, while asking for migration to a seamless digital registration.
Segun Awosanya, chief executive officer at Social Intervention Advocacy Foundation (SIAF), recently announced the foundation’s resolve to work at the arrest and dismissal of extortionists through institution of legal charges. He has asked the public to reach the SIAF to report NIMC centres where bribe is demanded for NIN registration with evidence such as short videos of demanding agents and the location.
“National Identification Number (NIN) registration as currently being run by rogues within the system fleecing the populace of money is the most grievous and boldest fraud yet in our socio-political history. The form is being sold despite the warnings in the time-wasting exercise,” Awosanya explained in a Twitter thread on the issue.
“Go to any of the NIMC centres and see the effort in futility yourself. Why can’t we fill the data online and link with our BVN to validate the info without needing to capture all over again? Why must we be extorted and our time wasted? The most merciful of the fraudsters running this racket charge N1,000 per head for this paper boldly adorned with warnings that the form is not for sale at the top and bottom of the page. The process has become so difficult that people are left with no choice than to pay,” he tweeted.
There are currently three methods of enrolment, viz: self-service, assisted service and mobile enrolment. The NIMC describes the assisted means as a “walk-in-and-get-assistance” from a support officer method of enrolment. In this case the applicant who cannot fill the enrolment form independently will be guided to correctly fill the form with the required information.
The mobile-service process involves an applicant enrolling through any of the mobile enrolment stations available in neighbourhoods. Under this method, the applicant may request for an enrolment form and personally complete it or request for assistance from the support officer.
But none of these methods permits enrolment independent of NIMC officials, perhaps considering the capturing of physical body features such as the face and fingerprints or the potential for abuse by identity fraudsters.
The self-service is the most adopted method where applicants obtain a hard copy of the form in an enrolment centre and the biometric data of the applicant is processed by an enrolment officer. However, it is also the most thriving avenue for fleecing people, hurting Nigeria’s chance of identifying the number of lives that depends on its economy.
About 168 million of Nigerians estimated 200 million population have no form of identity coverage, according to World Bank’s Identification for Development 2018 annual report. Contrastingly, China with a population of 1.4 billion, more than seven times the size of Nigeria, has 100 percent of its population identified. About 88 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population are recognised.
According to a 2019 McKinsey Global Institute report on digital identifications’ impact on inclusive growth, getting all of a country’s population on a digital trail will not only enable civic and social empowerment but will also make possible real and inclusive economic gains. Individuals will, for instance, be able to unlock value and benefit as they interact with firms and government and other individuals in roles such as consumers, workers, microenterprises, taxpayers, civically engaged individuals, asset owners, among others.
Across emerging economies of Brazil, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India and China, McKinsey forecasts that 65 percent of potential value could accrue to individuals on the average, 7 percent to Nigerians in particular, making it a potent tool for inclusive growth. Output for a sector such as agriculture could increase by as much as 8 percent if 90 percent of farmers utilise digital ID to formalise land titles by 2030. Farmers could also benefit through better targeting of agricultural support, such as crop insurance or agricultural subsidies, especially when combined with location information and remote sensing.
Abdulhamid Umar, general manager, operations and corporate communications at NIMC, is not unaware of this as he acknowledged in a statement in December that a robust identity for Nigeria would deepen access to finance, access to basic health and educational services as well as labour market opportunities. He highlighted the relief for government in terms of the reduction in the cost of governance, better service delivery and improvement in the enforcement of law and order.
His major worry, however, was that without strong political leadership and commitment to financial resources and stakeholder collaboration, the national identity programme would not be successful and sustained.
But he failed to equally emphasise that the potential opportunities from the scheme could be trapped lost if fleecing stands in the way of 168 million unregistered Nigerians and the mismanagement of the available resources continues unchecked.
In what is considered the world’s largest biometric ID programme with nearly 1 billion registered users, India introduced Aadhaar as a measure to streamline government’s welfare scheme and curtail identity fraud. The registration has been made compulsory for a swath of public and private services including traffic tickets, bank accounts, pensions, and even meals for undernourished children. In fact, indigent citizens have to get their fingerprints scanned to access their allocation of government rice. The level of people’s fear about it borders on security of private information and not the challenge of extortion that has largely complicated an otherwise simple registration in Nigeria.
Almost six years after the national e-identification was launched in 2014 in partnership with Mastercard, the adoption rate hovers at a measly 10 percent, locking up benefits to individuals.
“For example, we estimate a 1.8 percent boost in productivity for existing workers in Nigeria from increased access to formal labour markets and better matching of skills with jobs. As a result, both workers and micro-producers could see higher earnings,” the McKinsey Global Institute report stated.
If the government is sincere about the registration of citizens, the programme should be implemented in a manner that doesn’t work against citizens, Gbenga Ojewoye, a public affairs analyst under Centre for Change, argued. He averred that mismanagement of population issues leaves poor consequences on public decisions.
