Nigeria begins issuing NIN to citizens in US, UK, 14 others

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has commenced enrolment and issuance of National Identification Numbers (NIN) to Nigerian citizens in 16 countries across five continents.

NIMC Director-General, Aliyu Aziz, announced this on Wednesday in Abuja while speaking via a Zoom meeting with editors on the topic “Strategic Roadmap for ID Development’’.

Mr Aziz said that as of March this year, capturing and issuance of NIN to Nigerians by the NIMC had taken place in the US, UK, China, South Africa, Austria, Germany and India.

According to him, the registration has also taken place in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Togo, Canada, Benin Republic, Italy, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates.

He, however, did not say the exact number of Nigerians in the diaspora so far captured in the identity registration, but assured that Nigerians everywhere would be registered eventually.

The NIMC chief also disclosed that 11 million Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) had been harmonised by the organisation and that additional 25 million BVN holders would be harmonised in the second quarter of this year.

Aziz, however, said that only about 41.5 million citizens and legal residents had been enrolled since 2012 when NIMC commenced the registration scheme, assuring that the NIMC had intensified efforts to register more people.