Beyond Enrollment: How NIMC is Taking Identity to Nigeria’s Doorsteps

For millions of Nigerians, identity is more than a card or an 11- digit number but the gateway to modern life.

From opening a bank account to accessing government services, identity has become the invisible key that unlocks opportunity.

Yet for years, distance, insecurity and weak infrastructure have kept many citizens outside that gate.

It is this reality that the Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Engr. Abisoye Coker Odusote, confronted head on during a recent prime-time interview on ARISE Television in Abuja, where she outlined a renewed push to take national identity enrollment directly to Nigeria’s communities.

Speaking with clarity and urgency, Odusote explained that NIMC’s mission goes far beyond the routine perception of registration centres and long queues.

“At the heart of what we do is the issuance of an 11-digit unique identifier, the National Identification Number (NIN), for every citizen and legal resident,” she said. “But that is only one part of a much broader mandate.”

According to her, NIMC operates on five key pillars: issuing the NIN; building and safeguarding a secure national identity database; issuing the General Multi-Purpose Card (GMPC); harmonising identity data across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs); and providing authentication and verification services.

Of these, she noted, verification remains the most misunderstood and arguably the most critical.

“A lot of people think our work is just about enrollment,” she said. “But authentication and verification are central. That is what allows identity to work across banking, telecoms, healthcare and governance.”

Today, NIMC maintains about 1,200 offices nationwide, with state offices in every state, presence in most local governments, and co location centres with sister agencies such as the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).

The Commission is also embedded in several ministry headquarters where government services are concentrated, acknowledging that physical presence alone does not equal access.

“In some parts of the country, particularly in the North-East, travelling from one local government to another can take four to six hours,” she explained, citing Borno State as a recurring example. “It is simply not acceptable that a Nigerian could be locked out of modern life because our system has not reached their road yet.”

That concern lies at the core of NIMC’s latest strategy, a deliberate shift from local government based enrollment to the ward and community levels.

Driven by a presidential directive aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the Commission has been mandated to ensure that every Nigerian is enrolled without exclusion.

To achieve this, NIMC has partnered with the World Bank through the Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative.

The partnership allows vetted front end partners to operate within Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem, expanding enrollment capacity far beyond what the Commission can do alone.

“We do not have the capacity by ourselves to reach every ward in the country,” Odusote admitted. “So we are partnering to take enrollment services directly into communities.” Odusote said

The strategy is as much about inclusion as it is about identity. Financial exclusion, digital marginalisation and geographic isolation, she noted, are often intertwined and identity is the first bridge across them.

Enrollment, she emphasised, remains completely free.
“No one should pay to be enrolled. We do not want Nigerians spending money just to get an identity,” she said.

Beginning February 16, NIMC plans to roll out a six week intensive community level enrollment drive aimed at covering significant ground nationwide.

While ward level offices are not yet fully operational, the exercise is expected to bring services closer to previously unreached populations.

To ensure effective grassroots engagement, the Commission is also collaborating with the National Orientation Agency (NOA), leveraging translated materials in multiple local languages to reach communities in ways they understand.

For Odusote, the goal is both simple and ambitious: to make identity universal, portable and functional.

“Identity should not be a privilege of geography,” she said. “Every Nigerian, regardless of where they live, deserves to be seen, recognised and included.” she said

Speaking on the NINAuth App, the DG.said one of the things she had to do was to look at the legal reforms.

“First of all, the NIMC Act 2007 has not been updated since. So we had to work on that. when it was first done, it was done without data protection in mind. It was done without cyber security issues in mind. But now it’s been updated, and it’s waiting for assent from the President for him to be able to sign that into law, because it’s been, you know, repealed and reenacted, and it’s gone through the National Assembly”

Speaking further, Odusote maintained that “what we have been able to achieve with that is to ensure we include the cyber security bill of 2015 and also include the Data Protection Act of 2023 which Mr. President signed into law when he took office. And so that’s very, very, very key, because it will enable and allow us to be able to carry out a lot of different functions in line with best practices”

Another thing she has been able to do with the NIN is that a lot of Nigerians have been able to successfully do verification.

” And we’ve done about from inception 2.2 billion verifications. And I will speak to that, and that’s from the government sector, but mostly private, but from an individual perspective, you have not been able to use your data. And what we are trying to do is ensure that you have a digital credential, a reusable digital credential that you can use across board, and you can use this credential to access different services across the private sector and government circles.

The NINAuth App, a digital identity authentication and verification platform is designed by the commission under Odusote to give Nigerian citizens and legal residents secure control over the use of their National Identification Number (NIN).

The application is now the official channel for digital identity verification across government institutions and private-sector services, marking a major shift in how identity data is accessed and shared in Nigeria.

At the core of the NINAuth App is real time, consent.driven identity verification. Rather than handing over photocopies or repeatedly submitting personal details, users can authenticate their identity through the app and explicitly approve each verification request.

This approach, according to NIMC, significantly reduces identity fraud and unauthorized access to sensitive personal information, as data is shared only with the user’s approval.

Another importance of the technology is that the NINAuth App is meant to restore data autonomy to individuals as users are able to determine
what specific identity information is shared, which organisation can access it, and when that access should be withdrawn.

“This consent first model promotes transparency and aligns with global best practices on data privacy and digital identity management.
The platform is also designed to simplify access to essential services by eliminating repetitive form filling and manual verification processes. With NINAuth, users can authenticate once and reuse verified credentials across multiple sectors, including SIM registration and telecommunications, banking and financial services, education and examinations, immigration and travel documentation, and government identity card services.” Odusote said

By digitising and centralising verification, NIMC says the app will reduce delays, cut administrative costs, and improve service delivery across both public and private institutions.

As Nigeria continues its journey toward digital governance and economic inclusion, NIMC’s community focused push signals a quiet but significant shift, one that recognises that national development begins with recognising every individual, one doorstep at a time.