Nigerian identity blues

Nigeria is one country with a plethora of identity data banks that do not interconnect. Among these are the data for obtaining the Bank Verification Number (BVN) being harvested by banks; the dataset for obtaining the International Passport booklet with the Immigration Service, another set for obtaining a Driver’s Licence from the Federal Roads Safety Commission (FRSC), and yet another set for obtaining the unique Voter Identification Number that qualifies eligible persons for the Permanent Voter Card from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Even telecoms operators have their own databanks harvested from SIM card registration by their clients.

The most basic of these, in practice, is the dataset for obtaining the National Identity Number (NIN) from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). ‘In practice,’ because in principle there could’ve been the most comprehensive data nest with the National Population Commission (NPC), but with the last census conducted nearly three decades ago, besides births and deaths not being routinely registered, such a databank is up in the air. In any event, NIMC is the agency statutorily mandated to operate the national identity management system.

The whole idea of these different datasets is to document with some degree of precision individual metrics of Nigerian citizens (or legal residents as it may apply), just so to make identity fraud difficult if not altogether impossible. With this country’s population size a rough guess at best based on internationally prescribed permutations, however, it is likely that more than half of the citizenry is yet to be captured in the data net. Yet, if any country is challenged by identity abuse, Nigeria is perhaps more so owing to a predilection for multiple registration, impersonation, identity theft and identity masking among other like tendencies in the populace, which the multiplicity of data harvests seek to rein in.

So it was that when the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) would address malpractices fostered by multiple registration and impersonation that had hobbled its examinations over the years, it required prospective candidates beginning from year 2020 to first secure a NIN with which to register. In the final days leading to the takeoff of the board’s registration of candidates last Monday, NIMC was deluged with desperate applicants seeking to register for the pre-conditional NIN.

It was a sheer emergency that exposed the dark underbelly of the national identity data harvest. Throngs of intending registrants besieged comparatively sparse centres that the identity commission had to attend to them. According to the prospects, not a few of these already few centres operated fitfully either by way inconsistent network connectivity to process data registration, or epileptic energy supply to power the computers. Inevitably, the laws of classical Economics when there is far greater demand for a product or service than its supply kicked in as scarcity throws up all manners of exploitative tendencies.

In the present case, the customer became a hapless prey and the service provider, the courted king. Intending registrants needed special favours from NIMC agents at the centres to get the deal done and secure their precious NIN. Such favours reportedly did not come free: they were extracted with bribes ranging from five hundred to four thousand naira, depending on the level of desperation an applicant faced. Touts who were not staff of the identity commission had a field day acting as middlemen. In some instances, intending registrants and their parents / guardians coughed out ‘donations’ to procure fuel for generators available to power the registration centres. Not a few of the applicants made a temporary home of the centres, while some others would arrive there before dawn to get a vantage spot on the queue only to leave long after dusk for another attempt another day when their present bid fell through.

‘There is some reprieve…with JAMB having deferred the NIN requirement till next year. But that has only kicked the can of identity data pooling down the road’

There is some reprieve now for these applicants, with JAMB having deferred the NIN requirement till next year. But that has only kicked the can of identity data pooling in the country down the road. Top officials of NIMC were reported refuting alleged abuses by the commission’s agents at registration centres, but these top officials in the same breath acknowledged the overwhelming turnout of desperate registrants at the few centres available to handle the throng. Well, unless the commission’s staff were angels and not humans, it is inconsistent to foreclose the abuses complained of by registrants.

One of the issues at play is that there has been a widespread disinterest among Nigerians towards securing the NIN. Despite being the hub of identity management system in the country, NIMC as at late last year had registered only a little above 37million of Nigeria’s estimated 200million population, going by reports citing the commission’s General Manager, Legal & Regulatory Services, Hadiza Dagabana. By comparison, this was less than half of some 84million people that INEC registered for the 2019 general election – even so when unlike voter registration, NIMC’s registration is not restricted to people who are 18 years and above.

Dagabana was also reported blaming the recent crisis that attended the quest for NIN by intending JAMB enrollees on the culture of last-minute rush. “We started enrolment in 2012, but nobody was interested in the exercise. Then we were begging people to come out and enroll but they were not keen. Now there is a crowd at the enrolment centres…Nigerians like last-minute rush, but the fact is: we have had these centres open and running since 2012,” she was quoted in the media saying.

There is no question obviously that it is incumbent upon Nigerians yet to secure their NIN to be more enthusiastic – outside deadlines – about seeking to register with the identity commission. This is more so as, apparently to compel such interest, the requirement of NIN has crept into many facets of Nigerian transactions such as obtaining / renewing the International Passport booklet, updating pension records and enrolment with JAMB until lately suspended, among others. But NIMC needs to match up by opening up more outlets to ease the way for intending registrants. Dagabana admitted there are fewer than 2000 such centres presently available, whereas a minimum of 4000 centres is the international standard. She explained that registration would be decentralised with development partner funding under the digital identity ecosystem project when the Data Protection Bill is signed into law. Whatever may be holding up signing the bill, the JAMB enrollees’ recent experience should be a strong motivation to earnestly do so.

Another issue at play is the prolonged delay in harmonising diverse data banks in the country as could avert multiplying demands on Nigerians to register their identity data. Recall some of the datasets we identified afore, which for practical purposes are in non-interconnecting silos. The multiplicity of databanks has become a factor fostering registrant fatigue.

Ideally, registering into one of the databanks should result in replicating one’s metrics in all other banks. It was in anticipation of such integration that INEC designed its registration template after that of the identity commission’s. It was in likewise anticipation that NIMC designed its e-ID card as a general multi-purpose card. Many years on, however, such harmonisation is yet a far call. “We are still in the process of this harmonisation. We have not even gone 30 percent on harmonisation with other agencies,” Dagabana was reported saying late in 2019.

But meanwhile, the nation is losing much. With such harmonisation, for instance, INEC’s voter inventory would in one swoop feed more than 84million datasets into the national databank, without NIMC having to mobilise fresh registration from same individuals like reinventing the wheel. Chances are that turf sentiments are involved in holding up progress in that direction. Did they say there is a word called patriotism?