The National Identification Number (NIN) enrollment rate has slowed to an average of 648,888 per month in 2024 (January–September), down from 1.05 million per month during the same period in 2023. This slowdown is happening amid an ongoing service upgrade aimed at expanding the NIN database capacity from 100 million to 250 million, and the ongoing SIM-NIN linkage exercise.
On Monday, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, the director general of the National Identity Management Commission, disclosed that the total number of Nigerians with NINs had reached 110 million, a 2.48 percent increase from the 107.34 million that she announced in May 2024.
She said this at an event commemorating the National Day of Identity, themed ‘Digital Public Infrastructure: Enabling Access to Services’ in Abuja. “The role of DPI has become indispensable to Nigeria’s economic development, as it offers a framework that connects citizens to essential services such as social welfare, healthcare, education, and financial inclusion. At the forefront of this transformation is NIMC, responsible for the National Identification Number, which has enrolled over 110 million Nigerians.”
As of December 31, 2023, total NIN enrollments stood at 104.16 million. However, the commission has only achieved 25.96 percent of the Federal Government’s monthly target of 2.5 million monthly enrollments. The government detailed its intention in its National Development Plan 2021-2025.
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The plan outlines a goal to register 100 million Nigerians in three years. “The latest of these is the Nigerian Communications Commission linking SIM Registration Data to the National Identity Number Database. NIMC plans to register an additional 100 million people in three years and has embarked on a massive registration drive. The plan is to enroll 2.5 million people monthly for the next three years,” it said.
The plan has been hindered by technical issues, with ongoing server upgrades further slowing progress. Adeolu Ogunbanjo, the president of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMs), noted that server downtime has also affected the SIM-NIN linkage exercise, which was scheduled to conclude on September 14, 2024. “Telco officials could not upload to the NIMC server, and subscribers were turned back,” he said.
In December 2020, the Federal Government banned the sale and registration of new SIM cards and mandated a 30-day deadline for citizens to link their NINs with their SIM cards. Since then, multiple extensions have been granted, and as of August 2024, over 66.01 million lines remained unlinked.
Ogunbanjo attributed these delays to network disruptions from NIMC, among other factors. He pointed out that the NIMC experienced about five days of downtime during the latest deadline. While the issues have reportedly been resolved, subscribers still faced delays.
“We are requesting a one- to two-week extension due to the hiccups earlier in the month. NIMC has resolved the issue, but subscribers were affected,” he added.
Despite these disruptions, NIMC maintains that its servers were never down. In a recent statement, Kayode Adegoke, Head of Corporate Communications at the commission, said, “NIMC wishes to inform the general public that National Identification Number (NIN) enrolment, verification and authentication, modification of data and other services are going on seamlessly to meet the needs of Nigeria for the NIN-SIM linkage deadline.”
Regardless, NIMC is in the process of upgrading its systems. “We have started to work on upgrading the capacity across all boards from the network infrastructure perspective to software licensing areas. We are working on that to increase the capacity that we have. We are trying to ensure that we increase it from 100 million to 250 million,” Coker-Odusote, NIMC’s DG, recently confirmed.
