National Identification Number (NIN) registration amounted to 92.63 million as of November 28, 2022.
This is according to the latest data released by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) seen by Nairametrics.
This shows that NIMC recorded a total of 1.9 million new enrollments in November, as the database stood at 90.68 million at the end of October.
More registered men: In terms of gender distribution, NIMC data revealed that 52.1 million people, representing 56% of Nigerians registered so far in the NIN database, are male. The remaining 40.5 million (44%) are women.
Registration by states: According to statistics, Lagos State has so far recorded the highest number of registrations in the country with 10.3 million Nigerians captured in the state. This was followed by Kano State, which saw 8 million registered NINs.
Other states that ranked in the top ten in terms of number of registrations include Kaduna with 5.4 million, Ogun with 3.8 million, Oyo with 3.6 million, FCT with 3.2 million, Katsina with 3.1 million , Rivers with 2.7 million, Delta with 2.4 million, and Bauchi also with 2.4 million NIN records.
The bottom says: NIMC data shows that the ten states with the lowest NIN registrations are Zamfara with 1.6 million total registrations as of November, Akwa Ibom with 1.5 million, Imo with 1.5 million, Enugu with 1.5 million , Yobe with 1.3 million, Taraba with 1.3 million, Cross River with 1 million, Ekiti with 971,712, Ebonyi with 744,869 and Bayelsa with 583,323.
The backstory: For years, Nigeria has struggled to create a credible national database through the NIN without success.
However, with a government policy introduced in December 2020 that requires all mobile subscribers to link their SIM to NIN, many Nigerians are forced to sign up for the national number.
To address NIMC’s infrastructure constraints, which had delayed the process for years, some companies, including telecom operators, were licensed to act as enrollment agents. The government directive from April this year ordered telecom operators to ban outgoing calls from untethered phone lines, affecting some 75 million lines.
Many of the affected subscribers were forced to search for the NIN record and link their lines to retrieve it for communications.