The National Identity Management Commission and the Nigerian Immigration Service enforces national identification number in the country

THE National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, and the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, have commenced the enforcement of the National Identification Number, NIN, on the new enhanced 10 years validity e-passport.

A statement jointly endorsed by Loveday Ogbonna, head, Corporate Communications, NIMC, and Sunday James, public relations officer, NIS, explained that this resolve to commence enforcement was agreed upon during a courtesy call by Muhammad Babandede, comptroller general, NIS, to Aliyu Aziz, director general, NIMC, at the commission’s headquarters.

Aziz, in his address, said the commission has upgraded its software and infrastructure to enable the generation of NIN in just micro seconds. This means that unlike in the past, the NIN is issued instantly to successful enrolees into the National Identity Data Base, NIDB.

“Few months ago, we had an issue that made NIN generation take up to hours and people had to come back the following day. However, right now it is instantaneous and that is the way we intend to maintain the system. The type of Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS, we utilise makes sure that the NIN is unique –that is our only job,” Aziz said.

On his part, Babandede commended NIMC for the upgrades which have resulted in instant and timely allocation of the NIN. He also reiterated the NIS willingness to accommodate NIMC in all its 44 diplomatic missions abroad and 42 locations in Nigeria to ensure that all Nigerians and legal residents are enrolled into the NIDB.

“We are ready to provide space for you to operate in our locations to facilitate real time online integration. If an immigration officer touches the computer, he should be able to connect to NIMC real time online, get the number, so that he can issue a passport,” he said.

Babandede expressed optimism for the collaboration as a test run carried out by the NIS with one thousand NIN samples to match with one thousand biometric visas yielded a success rate of 89.4 percent which means it is good and that Nigerians are providing accurate information.

President Muhammadu Buhari had, while unveiling the new enhanced e-passport with a-10-year validity directed that the NIN which is issued by the NIMC be inserted as additional data in the new passports.

– Mar. 15, 2019 @ 16:57 GMT |