In four years, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued 60.14 million National Identification Numbers (NIN) to Nigerians.
This translates to 30.07 per cent of the estimated 200 million population of Nigeria.
The ICIR collated the data from a recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on NIN registration. The data showed that between 2019 and 2022, NINs have been registered and issued to 32.8 million males and 27.3 million females.
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Also, by geographical region, the Northern states had a total registration of 36.5 million Nigerians while the Southern states had a total of 23.6 million Nigerians.
Recall that in December 2020, the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, had given a directive to withdraw the licence of any service provider who failed to link NIN to subscribers’ SIM cards. This announcement, since then, has increased the registration of Nigerians to get their NIN.
The ICIR reported how mobile subscriptions increased from 225.9 million in January 2022 to 226.8 million in February 2023.
Also, The ICIR reported how the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) also said that NIN would soon replace the current forms of identification required for applicants for business and company registration.
Breakdown of the data
By geopolitical region, the North-West region had the highest registration with 19.2 million. It was followed by the South-West and North-Central with 13.6 million and 9.1 million respectively.
However, the North-East, South-South and South-East had 8.2 million, 5.8 million and 4.2 million registrations respectively.
Breaking down by state, in 2022, the top five states with the highest number of registrations and issuance of identity numbers were Kano (2,444,224), Lagos (2,097,912), Kaduna (1,256,479), Katsina (1,156,149) and Ogun (1,075,942).
As of 2021, Kano state recorded the highest number with 3,415,421, followed by Lagos state with 3,002,693, and Kaduna state with 1,434,331. Meanwhile, in 2020, Lagos state recorded the highest number of registrations and issued national identity numbers with 523,901, followed by Kaduna state with 471,858, and Kano state with 373,352.
In 2019, the highest number of NIMC registered people were in Kaduna with 595,284, 560,757 in Lagos state, and 485,912 in Kano state.
Kehinde Ogunyale tells stories by using data to hold power into account. You can send him a mail at jameskennyogunyale@gmail or Twitter: Prof_KennyJames | LinkedIn: Kehinde Ogunyale