It has been confirmed that more than 89 million Nigerians have been registered by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) through its ongoing enrollment exercise.

The commission says this is an additional 82 million from the seven million in the data base by November 2015 when Mr Aliyu Aziz assumed duty as NIMC Director-General.

According to NIMC guidelines, every Nigerian citizen or legal resident in the country from birth is eligible to enrol for the National Identification Number (NIN), which is issued by the commission. A minor will however not be issued with the NIN card until he or she attains the age of 16.

United Nations’ projection puts Nigeria’s population this year at about 218 million.

Ahead of the fourth National Identity Day, scheduled for Friday in Abuja, the NIMC DG told the media: “The 89 million are the mainstream people; so there are still remaining the local people in the village, petty traders, market people and artisan in rural areas across the country. NIN is the right of everyone”.

Aziz said identity was a tool for empowerment and greater use of digital identity could help bring development and coordination for better delivery of government services.

He said the commission had increased its equipment upgrade from 1,000 to 29,000 nation wide, urging the new enrollees to always go with literate people to reduce errors in the process of their enrollment.

Aziz attributed the collapse of NIMC’s data centres to the equipment upgrade and assured that the commission had acquired more facility to improve on the enrollment exercise.

He said the commission would soon allow people to do independent modification of their data through NIMC app once they were through with the integration.

The DG, who said the commission charges some stipends for modification of biodata of enrollees, however, reiterated that the enrolment was free for every citizen and legal residents.

He urged the media to sustain the campaign of educating the populace in the hinterland, particularly in local languages.

Aziz said that as part of activities to commemorate the National Identity Day, “we are partnering with the traditional institutions and their leaders to create awareness on NIN enrollment.

”Since then, we have been growing the database at the average of two to three million monthly”.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that United Nations had set a target of achieving identity for all persons by year 2030 and Nigeria was the first country to commemorate the ID Day since 2018.