The National Identity Management Commission, according to the federal government, will enroll around 2.5 million people per month for the next three years.
Within the next three years, an additional 100 million people are likely to be registered.
This was revealed in the President’s National Development Plan 2021-2025, which was introduced by Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
Identity management has been a big challenge for previous governments, according to the plan. The current leadership, on the other hand, is tackling this issue through the NIN-SIM linkage that is currently taking place in the country.
Because of this three-year forecast, the government is likely to keep extending the deadline for attaching the national identity number to the subscriber identity module, allowing more Nigerians to participate beyond the end of this year.
The government announced in October that the deadline for NIN-SIM data verification will be extended until the end of 2021, citing the fact that 66 million unique NIN enrolments had been recorded.
Dr. Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, announced in December that over 70 million unique national identity number enrolments have been logged as of December 10, 2021.
According to the minister, the number of enrolments increased from 40 million in September 2020 to over 70 million on December 10, 2021, representing a 30 million rise in just over a year.
Aliyu Aziz, the Director-General of the National Identity Management Agency, stated that the agency expects to enroll over 200 million people in the national identity database.
This revealed that the NIMC has only met 35% of its goal, which it may not be able to meet in the next three years.
According to a table in the National Development Plan 2021-2025, Nigerians and resident foreigners account for around 15% of NIN, with the goal of reaching 90% by 2025.
In a previous Punch story, it was revealed that the federal government intends to replace the present 11-digit National Identity Number with a digital token consisting of 16 alphabets and digits in January 2022.
As such, the Federal Government plans to make illegal and a punishable offence any company or agency found storing or verifying the 11-digit National Identity Number.
Attempts to get a comment from NIMC’s Spokesman, Kayode Adegoke, on Tuesday proved abortive as he neither responded to calls nor a text message.
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