The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that the number of Nigerians who now have the National Identification Number (NIN) is 102.39 million as of August 28, 2023.
The Commission disclosed this in its recently released NIN enrolment data.
In August, the total enrollment figure stood at 743, 085, which is slightly higher than the 634,603 recorded in July this year.
The data shows that NIN enrolment was yet to pick up after slowing down in July.
The enrolments in the last two months were low considering that the database had been growing by an average of 1 million in preceding months.
According to the data, Lagos State maintained the top spot by recording the highest number of enrolments in the country with 11.17 million Nigerians captured in the State.
This was followed by Kano State, which recorded 9.07 million registered NIN.
The two states have maintained the lead in NIN enrollment since the beginning of the exercise.
Other states that made the top ten in terms of the number of enrolments include Kaduna with 6.3 million; Ogun with 4.3 million; Oyo with 3.9 million; Katsina 3.5 million; FCT with 3.4 million; Rivers 3 million; Bauchi 2.7 million and Delta which also recorded 2.7 million.
NIMC data shows that the 10 states with the lowest NIN issued are Akwa-Ibom 1.7 million, Imo 1.7 million, Kogi 1.7 million; Enugu 1.64 million, Yobe 1.6 million, Taraba 1.47 million, Cross River 1.17 million, Ekiti 1 million, Ebonyi 818,173, and Bayelsa 642,233.
In terms of the gender distribution of the enrollees, the NIMC data reveals that 58.15 million, representing 56.8 percent of Nigerians so far captured in the NIN database are male, while 44.23 million, representing 43.2 per cent of the total enrollees are female.
The slowdown in enrollments in August may further affect the country’s ability to meet the World Bank’s target under the Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project. Under the project terms, Nigeria is expected to have issued 148 million NIN by June 2024.
Apart from issuing NIN to 148 million Nigerians by 2024, the World Bank listed other targets to include the issuance of NIN to at least 65 million female Nigerians by June 1, 2024, as well as 50 million NIN to children under 16 years of age.
However, with the recent appointment of a new Director-General, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, NIMC said it has started working to accelerate the issuance of the digital identity token in line with the renewed hope mandate of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
