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Nigeria steps up national ID enrolment efforts

NIMC streamlines issuance to social grants beneficiaries, farmers, inmates
Nigeria steps up national ID enrolment efforts
 

Nigeria has a new target to issue at least 180 million digital IDs by December 31, 2026, following the World Bank’s extended support for the project. This means deploying every measure possible to reach more citizens in all sectors of the economy.  As part of the efforts to reach this goal, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is ramping up efforts to streamline issuance. Recently, the ID authority concluded deals with some government ministries such as those of Humanitarian Affairs and Agriculture and Food Security, as well as the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS), to increase the number of safety nets beneficiaries, farmers and prison inmates who have the National Identification Number (NIN).

Digital IDs to facilitate govt cash transfers to 18.1M people

The Nigerian government has been distributing cash assistance to poor citizens through a program that requires verification using the NIN. Now, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Prof Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, says they plan to expand the national social register to 18.1 million names and to reach at least 70 million poor households across the country by the end of this year.

The rate of poverty in the country is alarming, the minister said in an interview with Arise News, reason why the federal government plans to extend the humanitarian outreach program to target more homes. Each household receives the sum of 75,000 Naira (US$45).

Giving update on the payments, the minister said the first tranche of the conditional cash transfers were paid to five million households between October and December 2024, while the second and third tranches were paid to 2.8 million households.

“The president has directed, based on CBN’s new regulations, that before any payment is made to an individual or household, they must have a digital identity we can trace. That is the NIN number,” the Yilwatda told Arise News.

The cash transfer enabled by digital ID was launched in 2023, and last year, the federal government said around 25 million Nigerians had already benefitted from the scheme.

NCoS gets licence to enroll over 79k inmates for digital ID

The Nigerian Correctional Services will henceforth be able to register inmates in all facilities under its control across the national territory.

This follows the signing of a licensing deal with the NIMC, as part of the ID authority’s efforts to decentralize NIN enrollment, according to Techpoint Africa.

Per the deal, NCoS will be able to enroll an estimated 79, 518 prison inmates currently held in prisons and other correctional institutions across the country.

The NIMC says the objective of the licensing deal is to facilitate NIN issuance by reducing overcrowding at NIMC registration centers as it looks to swell up the national ID database. For the case of inmates, another reason advanced by authorities is the improvement of security within correctional facilities.

Nigeria has spoken in the past about using biometrics to identify jail breakers.

Database of farmers in the works

Like with the NCoS, the NIMC also recently signed an MoU with the federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to set up a farmer database, Nigerian Tribune reports.

The database, which will be called the “farmer register”, just like the “social register” for safety nets, will be useful in guiding the federal government’s agricultural policy and programs, the partners say.

For a start, the Nigerian government hopes to enroll six million farmers in the farmer register in the long run, but the process will begin with a pilot where two million farmers are expected to be registered.

The project is planned to roll on over a period of three months and the NIMC hopes to work in collaboration with local private partners to be able to reach farmers in the backcountry.

Speaking on the deal with NIMC, Agriculture and Food Security Minister Abubakar Kyari said the idea is to identify farmers and their farmlands for more focussed government assistance.

This move is very much like the one in India where the government has introduced a new policy requiring farmers to obtain a farmer ID in order to make the distribution of government support much easier. The government has a target to issue 110 million farmer IDs.

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