NIMC lists fees for correcting biodata errors

The World Bank has commended the performance of Nigeria in the race to ensure citizens are digitally identified through the Nigeria Identity for National Development (ID4D) project.

The bank, in a report seen yesterday, described the progress made so far in Nigeria as satisfactory, noting that the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is making progress.

Under the ID4D project, NIMC is expected to have issued the National Identification Number (NIN) to 148 million Nigerians by June 2024. Based on the last released data, the Identity Commission has handed 104.16 million NINs to Nigerian citizens.

In the report published on March 29, the World Bank said: “NIMC is making satisfactory progress”. It noted that the development objective of the project is to increase the number of persons with a national ID number, issued by a robust and inclusive foundational ID system that facilitates their access to services.

The bank said further to the enactment of the data protection law, NIMC is currently working towards achieving the two remaining disbursement conditions which are expected to be met by January 2024 and June 2024 respectively.

The report showed that the World Bank approved the ID4D project in Nigeria on February 18, 2020, with an effective date of December 14, 2021. The planned mid-term review was September 29, 2024 and the actual mid-term review date of October 2, 2023. The original closing date was June 30, 2024, which is the same as a revised closing date.

Highlighting some of the milestones that have been achieved under the project, the World Bank said NIMC has updated its Android enrollment software which will shorten the time of enrollment.

The report stated: “Updates include the reduction of the enrolment fields to 10 minimal fields and the introduction of two-factor authentication for enrolment officers amongst other features of the upgrade.

“In addition to shortening the enrollment time, the project has established relationships with humanitarian and civil societies to ensure the inclusive capture of women.

“Enrollment numbers reached 45 million from 15 million at the onset of the project, which is 59.4 per cent of the targeted female enrollment.
“Features of the completed upgrade include a child enrolment use case and school-based enrolment campaigns, which were tested during the test phase enrolments.

“The total child enrollment reached 16 million from almost nothing at the onset of the project, which is 31.1 per cent of the targeted child enrolment.”

The ID4D project, which commenced in 2019, is being financed through an International Development Association (IDA) credit of $115 million and co-financing of $100 million from the French Agency for Development and $215 million from the European Investment Bank.

According to the World Bank, which facilitated the loans and monitored the project, as of April 30, 2023, a total of $35.6 million had been disbursed for the implementation of the project.

Meanwhile, NIMC has announced the fees that Nigerians are required to pay to modify the data on their National Identification Number (NIN). Accordingly, Nigerians are now required to pay as much as N16,000 to correct their date of birth on the NIN. This followed the introduction of a mobile application by NIMC for Nigerians to make corrections to their name, date of birth, phone numbers on their NIN profile.

In a post via its official X handle over the weekend, NIMC revealed that a newly introduced mobile app allows users to change inaccurately registered names, dates of birth, and phone numbers.

The app and online platform enable users to sign up for the service. Following this, users are required to input their NIN, last name, and email address before accessing the data modification feature.

Initially, NIMC did not specify a fee for data modifications, but seven days later, in response to user complaints about technical issues with the mobile app, the commission announced varying fees for different self-service options to modify data such as name, age, date of birth, phone number, and email address linked to the NIN.

As it stands, to correct personal data on the NIMC App, you are required to pay the following fees: N1, 522.5 for Name Correction; N16, 340 for Date of Birth Correction; N1, 522.5 for Address Correction and N1, 522.5 for Email Correction.