Nigerians are going through hell trying to process anything that has to do with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), especially the National Identification Number (NIN), which it issues to citizens.
The commission, which was established by the NIMC Act No. 23 of 2007, has the mandate to establish, own, operate, maintain and manage the National Identity Database in Nigeria, register persons covered by the Act, assign a unique National Identification Number and issue General Multi-Purpose Cards (GMPC) to those who apply for it
As of today, the system has collapsed since November 2025, much like the epileptic national grid, such that anyone who has something to do with NIN will suffer for months before achieving it.
In fact, it is easier for a cow to pass through the eye of a needle than for people to achieve anything that has to do with the NIN managed by NIMC.
Across the nation, applicants for NIN, those whose NIN was suspended or pending, those migrating from one telephone line to another or those trying to acquire international passports are going through hell.
For instance, Adaobi Nnamaife, who spoke to our correspondent at the headquarters of the NIMC, near the Civil Defence Corps office in Alausa, Lagos, said she has been visiting the office since November last year in vain, as she has been unable to have her particulars captured, “I have problems with my Airtel number and when I visited Airtel’s office to rectify the line issue, I was referred to NIMC office as my NIN has been suspended. A staff of Airtel advised me that I should rush down to the NIN office at Alausa.
“In less than 30 minutes, I arrived at the office from Ikeja. I thought it was what I could handle in a few minutes and go back to the Airtel office.
“Since November 2025, I have been coming to the NIMC office to rectify my NIN but I have not been successful. I would arrive at the office by 6am, to secure a seat and number, but, no matter how I try, I always meet about 20 people on the queue. My number must start from 21. The staff members would arrive by 8am, and tell us the same story of what and what we should do and start calling out numbers chronologically. If we are lucky, they attend to two or three people, from morning till 4pm, and they would arrogantly tell us to come back the following day. Because of this NIN issue, I applied for my annual leave in December. My leave of 35 days has expired and I haven’t been able to rectify the issue. I am tired.”
On why she has not been able to rectify the issue, she said, “It is a network problem. The NIMC has serious network hitches. The staff would openly tell us that the network has failed all over the country. Sometimes, you would come in the morning and wait for three hours for the network, and the staff would advise us to go home and return the next day.
“I don’t know what else to do. I am appealing to the Federal Government to wade into the matter and help Nigerians to solve the problem confronting them in NIMC.”
For Matthew Aigbedion, he was 14 when he did his NIN registration with his father’s phone number when he wanted to acquire an international passport: “Now that I have turned 19, I wanted to open a bank account, but I was asked to migrate from my dad’s phone number to mine before I could open the account. I have been going to NIN offices since November. I was advised by a staff of NIN in their headquarters in Alausa to visit Ikeja Local Government office, as they used to have better network coverage there than the head office.
“After three weeks of wasting my time in Alausa, I had to go to Ikeja LG, where I was able to do the data capture after paying some money. That is the first step because I must still go back to the NIMC office in Alausa to continue with another tortuous journey, but after two weeks of capturing in Ikeja, I have not been able to print out my NIN certificate that I would take back to NIMC office in Alausa to continue the second phase of registration.
“They keep telling me to come back tomorrow. One of the LG staff advised me to go try Agege LG office. When I arrived at Agege LG, they collected N3,000 to print out my registration, yet the network was bad again. I will still try my luck but my problem is that I am due to go back to the UK.
“So, after next week, if I am not able to do it, I will go back without sorting the NIN or bank account. What is really wrong with our agencies? Just to open a bank account, I was referred to NIMC that is not functioning. The government should do something drastic about it because there is nothing you can do without NIN today.”
In the view of another respondent, Matthew Ejike, the Nigerian government is not serious about NIN, “We are facing serious problems concerning every law by the government and duplication of functions. We suffer when we want a driver’s license; we face serious problems when we want to get a national identity card; we face frustration when we want NIN; we face serious hazards, when we want to open a bank account, it becomes a problem. You want to get a resident permit, it is a big problem. You want a voter card, you are frustrated.
“Doing anything in Nigeria is frustrating. I wanted to do certain things in Nigeria, but I ended up doing nothing. I wanted to migrate from my former phone number to a new one and I went from one local government office to another in Lagos before I was advised to visit the NIMC headquarters in Alausa. I have spent three weeks queuing up from morning to evening without success.
“I will be returning to my base, Canada, tomorrow. This is too bad. That was also what happened when I went to obtain my international passport. I spent weeks before I could do the data capture because the NIN network failed. That was about four years ago. I thought the government would have fixed the problem but the problem is still there.
“Now, the government has made the problem confronting us more serious because there is virtually nothing you do now without NIN. The government is not serious. Let the government intervene or abolish the use of NIN in everything in Nigeria.”
A senior staff of NIMC, told Daily Sun that,” It is not our fault. Network is terribly bad. We don’t have the powers to control network. When it comes , we work ,but when there is no network, there is nothing we can do. I feel for the suffering masses ,who come here everyday. I see their frustration; if I had the powers ,I would have done everything they require for them, but the network is bad from the headquarters, which means that there is no network all over the country.”