By Jessica Dogo
The Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr Aliyu Aziz said its national database has hit over 93.5 million National Identity Number (NIN) enrollments.
He made the disclosure at a one-day roundtable meeting organised by Identify for Development (ID4D), on Tuesday in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme was organised for desk officers of the Nigeria Digital Identification Project’s ecosystem implementing partners.
Aziz, represented by the Director of Public Services, Ibrahim Abdullahi, said the new approaches had greatly impacted on the huge increase on the national database to the current 93.5 million.
“The unified ID system approach as well as the ecosystem model has had a tremendous positive impact on the enrollment figure.
Aziz said: “Currently, the National Identity Database has over 90 million (93.5m) records, which is a sharp contrast from just seven million when I assumed office in 2015.
“The primary aim of the strategic roadmap for digital identification in Nigeria, is to simplify the approach to identification through simple data collection process and a centralised unique identification system for Nigeria and legal residents.
“This is a sharp contrast to the fragmented multi-issuing ID agencies of the past.”
He said there was the need to put in place a deliberate and long term plans to chart new pathways that would priotise national projects.
Aziz also said: ”There is also the need to build resilience, explore emerging trends and capitialise on opportunities inherent in a unified ID system in order to reposition our country economically, as well as productively”.
The National Coordinator of ID4D, Mr Musa Idole said the meeting was to fashion out a single point of contact with each of the ecosystem implementing partners.
He said this would ensure that partners do not miss out on any important step in the project implementation.
Idole said that the Nigeria Digital ID4D was a project jointly funded by the World Bank, European Investment Bank and the French Development Agency.
“The Project Development Objective is to increase the number of persons with a National Identity Number (NIN), issued by a robust and inclusive foundational Identity system, that facilitates their access to services.
“By design, the project will promote transparency and accountability, participation, grievance redress and regular monitoring to improve operational performance and mitigation of identified social risks.
“The project will establish a national consultation mechanism, to sustain dialogue with stakeholders and marginalised groups to receive feedback that would improve project implementation.
“We are taking deliberate steps to ensure that the challenge of inter-agency rivalry is a thing of the past. It is in the overriding interest of Nigeria that institutions of government collaborate.
“We, therefore, call for synergy among all public institutions in Nigeria, particularly, those involved in the country’s ID ecosystem. We seek your collaboration and active participation in the project implementation,” he said.
The Director, Database NIMC, Mr Olufemi Fabunmi, said that, “NIMC will increase its server capacity to 250million from 100 million after a service upgrade. (NAN)