The Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr. Aliyu Aziz has disclosed that more than 100 million Nigerians have no form of identification.
The NIMC boss disclosed this during a Zoom meeting with editors .
Aziz, who spoke on the topic: “Strategic Roadmap for ID Development”, said less than 50 percent of the country’s population is not enrolled in the commission’s database.
“Over 100 million Nigerians have no identity (ID). These include the poorest and the most vulnerable groups, such as the marginalised – women and girls, the less-educated people, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, people with disabilities and people living in rural and remote areas,” The Cable quoted him as saying.
“The estimated population of Nigeria stands at 200 million. Only about 38 per cent of the population have any form of ID.”
According to the NIMC boss, the commission has issued 41.5 million unique identifiers, known as national identification numbers (NIN), since the commencement of identity registration and enrolment in 2012.
He also said the commission registers all Nigerian citizens within and outside the country, as well as legal residents.
“Between 2012 till date, only 41.5 million citizens and legal residents have been enrolled into the National Identity Database (NIDB) and issued unique NIN, an average of 5.2 million enrollments per annum,” he said.
“At this rate, it will take a long time to enroll the remainder of the people currently living in the country today, and by that time, about 292 million more people would have been added.
“Hence, the need for a strategy to enroll the backlog within the shortest possible time. And that is the reason for the idea of strategic roadmap and the birth of the ecosystem approach.”
