Digital ID enrollment app rolls out soon for Nigerians abroad

A self-service app meant to enable Nigerians living abroad to easily register for the National Identification Number (NIN) is set to launch next month, the country’s ID-issuing authority has announced.

Abisoye Coker-Odusote, director general of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said recently that the application will facilitate digital ID registration for these Nigerians by providing them a streamlined and contactless enrollment experience, Innovation Village reports.

According to the official, the app will not only provide convenience for Nigerians in foreign countries who want to procure a digital ID, it will also help ramp up the figures of enrolled citizens in the NIMC’s national population registry.

As of December last year, the NIMC had registered 104.16 million Nigerians for the NIN, but the country still has a long way to go in meeting a World Bank-directed objective of issuing digital ID to at least 148 million citizens of the country’s over 200 million population.

Recently, Coker-Odusote had a chat with the Chairman and CEO of the Commission in charge of Nigerians in Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, on how to build collaboration on the project. It emerged at the end of their exchange that a Diaspora Focal Point will be created and lodged at the NIMC to coordinate the diaspora enrollment process and proffer solutions to problems as quicky as they are reported.

They both agreed that the new step by the NIMC to facilitate NIN enrollment for citizens living abroad ties in with the federal government’s objectives of facilitating access to digital services for citizens wherever they reside.

The announcement of launching a NIN registration app for diaspora Nigerians comes after the NIMC had unveiled a similar NIN enrollment platform for people within the country. But this faced criticism from various quarters over data privacy and security concerns.

Nigeria’s digital ID enrollment efforts have been facing a litany of problems including a lack of infrastructure, inadequate funding and acts of corruption reportedly perpetrated by third-party enrollment partners who are now undergoing revalidation.

Full online biometric passport enrollment starts March 8

In a related development, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has announced that the process to fully apply for passports digitally will begin from March 8.

In an update reported by Daily Post, the NIS Comptroller-General Wura-Ola Adepoju said Nigerians seeking to renew their passports or establish new ones have until March 8 to visit physical passport offices for the capture of their biometrics.

After this, she said, the process will be completely taken online, and there’ll be no need for physical contacts.

The official reiterated, as directed by the Interior Minister last year, that the turn-around time for passport issuance is henceforth two weeks.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometric enrollment  |  biometric passport  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  National Identity Management Commission (NIMC)  |  National Identity Number (NIN)  |  Nigeria