• Registration still 32% short of World Bank’s 148m June target 
• Insecurity defies NIN-SIM linkage as kidnapping festers
• Experts want FG to fix economy, create jobs to curb insecurity 
 
Despite efforts made to close the gap, the disparity between the number of issued National Identification Numbers (NINs) and the country’s population figure remains extreme, raising concerns about the country’s ability to meet crucial milestones.
 
This comes as the NIN enrolment figure and distribution pattern raise questions on the credibility of the population estimates, which the National Population Commission (NPC) pegged at near 218 million last year.
 
Some experts have begun to doubt if the country’s actual population has not been overestimated, especially with childbirth control adoption gaining traction in the southern part of the country in recent years and the north still holed up in high infant mortality.
   
As of December, there were 104.16 million issued NINs, a figure that is less than 50 per cent of the estimated population of the country. This suggests that there is still a gap of 113.8 million.

   
Identity management, with its ability to include broad segments of the population, is considered a critical infrastructure for nation-building and economic planning.
    
Indeed, the quest for accurate and comprehensive data on key identification systems has become important in Nigeria’s rapidly evolving digital landscape. Today, various investments have gone into disparate data-capturing processes in the country, including Bank Verification Number (BVN), National Identification Number (NIN), voter registration, SIM registration, passport issuance and driver’s licence registration.
   
 With moves to sync the disparate data into one harmonised form in the heart of governance, the country has been unable to close the gap between NIN registration and the population figure.  
   
Some experts have drawn a link between the country’s rising insecurity and poor documentation of citizens, a problem NIN was created to address. 
The slow penetration of the programme is raising some concern. The lead agency promoting the initiative – the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) – would need to work much harder to meet, for instance, the World Bank’s 148 million target set for June 2024. It would register close to half of the already-registered population to meet the target.
   
Aside 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.
   
But as of December 2023, NIMC has issued NINs to 45 million women and 59.1 million men. The Commission has not come out with the number of identification numbers issued to children, especially under 16 years.
    
The ID4D project, which commenced in 2019, is being financed through an International Development Association (IDA) credit of $115 million and co-financing of $100 million from the French Agency for Development and $215 million from the European Investment Bank.     
  
According to the World Bank, which facilitated the loans and monitored the projects, as of April 30, 2023, a total of $35.6 million had been disbursed for the implementation of the project.
  
The bank said the objective of the Digital Identification for Development Project for Nigeria is to increase the number of persons with national ID numbers, issued by a robust and inclusive foundational Identification (ID) system that facilitates their access to services.
  
Other performance indicators set for Nigeria include the development of pro-poor functional public and private services employing the foundational ID system for authentication and service delivery.
   
Part of the project’s requirements also makes it mandatory for the country to develop “a legal and regulatory framework that adequately protects individuals’ data and privacy”.
  
The project was expected to address and mitigate exclusion risks by incorporating grievance-redress and oversight mechanisms in NIMC’s existing customer service department. Through strong public awareness campaigns, outreach strategies, an inclusive and transparent communications plan, and continuous stakeholder engagement will further help manage other social risks.
    
Failure to increase the number of people with NINs, means more people would not be able to easily access vital services. Again, to ensure the NIN-SIM database becomes more accurate and useful, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has given till February 28, 2024 for all operators to bar completely, any SIM card not linked to the owner’s NINs. In carrying out this task, several subscribers have been alerted by telecoms operators to the need for them to complete their linkages.
  
Analysing the disparity between NIN figures and population growth, a telecoms expert, Kehinde Aluko, said the country needs to do more to know its true population. A more aggressive implementation of NIN is seen as a credible alternative to population census, which has not been done since 2006 or 18 years ago.
     
Basing his analogy on the last election, Aluko said as the penetration of technology increases in Nigeria, it is becoming more and more challenging to fake the population figures.  
  
“We just concluded a presidential election, which, according to some, was the most participated-in election in Nigerian history. But, when the election results were released, only a little over 20 million people voted in a country with an estimated 220 million people. Even if you take kids into account, such figures are still too low. It’s even lower than previous years. What changed? I thought our population grew. The answer is that the government started using technology more in the election process. They introduced the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS), which made it harder to create people from thin air,” he stated.
     
He said the population of Southern Nigeria has been declining, with the average family having three kids while high infant mortality rate and insurgency are taking a toll on the northern population. 
  
“Northern Nigeria has a higher birth rate than southern Nigeria but is poorer and is battling an insurgency crisis, with a higher child mortality rate. Most population projections don’t take these into account. They also don’t take emigration into account. An estimated 11 million Nigerians are living abroad and more people are leaving every day,” he said.
   
On the issue, the Chairman, Mobile Software Nigeria, Chris Uwaje, there is a need to read the regulatory documents that established NIN, especially as regards the eligibility clause. He said out of the 218 million population, he asked, how many are aged one to five, six to 10, 11 to 13, 14-21, 23-42, 44-75 or above?
     
“Compounded: How many people are born and how many die per minute in Nigeria? Finally, we need to structure the collection of population data into Birth-to-Death – at all levels in all states (to this end, there must be a Regulatory Law to pay/compensate traditional midwives for data delivery on all births across the nation and on all deaths from traditional rulers). This will require a quantum computing infrastructure and training of millions of IT personnel,” he stated.   
   
Under the Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project, the World Bank expects NIN enrollment to hit 148 million by June 2024. According to the bank, the ID4D project is expected to increase the number of individuals with a national ID number, issued by a robust and inclusive foundational identification system, which facilitates their access to services.
 
 The global bank stated that by 2024, 65 per cent of the Nigerian population should have NIN.  
    
“By 2024, the project aims to increase coverage of the national ID in Nigeria to 148 million persons.
    
“This figure corresponds to 65 per cent of the total 2024 population of Nigeria and will expand coverage to 91 million adults (80 per cent) as well as 57 million children (50 per cent),” it started.
   
While 104 million Nigerians have been issued identification numbers by NIMC, data for January 2024 has not been released. NIMC is also expected to have updated the demographics of Nigerians with NINs year-to-date (YTD). 
    
Three years into the enforcement of the NIN-SIM verification and linkage policy in Nigeria, which was projected to help tackle kidnapping and other social vices, it appears the objective has been defeated.  
     
From November 2023 and February 2024, the spate of kidnappings across the country has reached the rooftop, this is even as bandits and kidnappers continued to rake in millions from their nefarious activities. 
    
In fact, kidnapping in Nigeria has become lucrative, spawning a vibrant criminal economy that continuously draws new assailants to the thriving illegal business. No single day without a reported case of kidnapping in the country. 
    
Kidnappers use force, threats, deception, or enticement to unlawfully detain a person. This clandestine exchange of material or financial gain for freedom has grown increasingly popular in Nigeria in the last 10 years. Kidnappings have become an arm of the Nigerian economy.
   
Activities of kidnappers, armed robbers, bandits, insurgents and fraudsters have increased, subsequently dealing a great blow to the objective of the policy.  
   
In December 2020, under Prof. Isa Pantami’s tenure as the minister of Communications and Digital Economy, under President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Nigerian government implemented the NIN-SIM linkage as a measure to address security challenges associated with volatile communication services.
    
Enforcing the policy especially at a time the country was battling second and third waves of COVID-19, and the promise made by the Federal Government then was that with NIN linked to SIMs, criminal activities in the country would reduce drastically, it is disturbing that as of today, nothing of such appeared to have happened.
    
The federal government had said: “By the time all Nigerians have linked their NINs to their SIM cards, it would indirectly improve the security of the country, it would help in tracing a call from a registered SIM.”
   
 The policy was hinged on the need to improve national security as every telephone line would be linked to the NIN, which would make it easy for security operatives to trace kidnappers and terrorists using the database.
    
Based on this policy, many Nigerians were compelled to register for the NIN, which was not easy at that time. But as of today, checks by The Guardian showed that no bandit has been apprehended via his or her linking NIN to SIM cards by security agents. Bandits are demanding ransoms, living large and continuing their nefarious activities with impunity.
    
Consequently, activities of terrorists have ravaged the Northwest, Northeast and gradually making inroads into North Central and Abuja has become the new hotspot for the criminals.
    
It is not also hassle-free in the entire Southern region as fraudsters, highway robbers and SIM swap criminals are smiling at the banks at the expense of their victims.
     
Indeed, the current state of insecurity is one among several other challenges crippling Nigeria. According to Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), 19,366 Nigerians were kidnapped in 2,694 kidnapping instances over the last 10 years as of the end of June 2023.
     
A 2023 intelligence report, titled, ‘The Economics of Nigeria’s Kidnap Industry: Follow the Money,’ by SB Morgan, kidnappers’ activities have spiralled out of control over time.
      
It disclosed that between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted in over 582 kidnapping incidents in the country, with a reported ransom demand of at least N5 billion and an actual ransom payment of over N302 million.
     
Like he lamented two years ago, Pantami, had in the wake of the Abuja Kidnapping, again, decried the non-usage of the NIN-SIM database to tackle the menace.
    
Pantami had said that the NIN-SIM policy came to be because of the need to address insecurity, which is a constitutional obligation of any government, as expressly stated in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in Section 14, Subsection 2, Article B.
   
The former minister expressed worry that the purpose of the policy, which many Nigerians criticized, is being defeated.In what suggested an abandonment of the policy by the new administration, Pantami claimed that the database was being utilised while he was in the office.
  
“I am more worried than anyone,” he stated. Responding to queries on why the security operatives have not been able to use the NIN-SIM database to track the kidnappers, Pantami in a post on X, said: “NIN-SIM policy has been working. However, the relevant institutions fighting criminality are to be requested to ensure they utilise it effectively when a crime is committed. Lack of utilizing it is the main problem, not the policy. While in office, I know three instances where the policy was utilised, and it led to the success of their operations.
     
According to him, rising inflation has led to declining consumers’ purchasing power and has pushed more Nigerians below the poverty line.
    
“People have become more desperate and ready to do anything to get money, including kidnapping, and killings. If care is not taken, I see more people going into crime. The need for survival has emboldened people, they have become more desperate,” he stated.
       
On why it appears the NIN-SIM policy is not walking, the Executive Secretary, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Gbolahan Awonuga, said the bad guys are always ahead.
     
Gbolahan said it has become difficult to apprehend the criminals because “they too have become smarter. Before now, they used their mobile line to demand ransom, but lately, they use their victims’ telephone lines to call for ransom. Most importantly, they are always in transit. They don’t stay in one position. By the time they make the call, after about one hour, they have moved from that spot.
     
He recalled that largely in the North, where the kidnapping businesses have become more lucrative, “they have vandalised and blew up telecoms sites in those areas. Some of them now use satellite telephones, which are usually difficult to trace. I think, largely, Nigeria’s security architecture should be rejigged.”
     
A security expert, Nnamdi Elabor, said virtually all the regions in the country have been infected with the kidnapping menace and is fast spreading to hitherto, peaceful places.
   
“I will say this is beyond the NIN-SIM application, the security agencies need to deploy intelligence to deal with this issue. There is a need for local intelligence; we need to do something about that. If the kidnappers know that they will not go scot-free once apprehended, the criminal acts will reduce. They need to always act swiftly whenever the need arises.”
    
According to him, the federal and state governments should collaborate in dominating the forested and other ungoverned spaces, which the gunmen use as safe havens and to keep their victims.