‘It will make your life easier’, dg lists benefits of digitising identity management | newsnight – Ty

It’s another day and it’s time for us to sit down again on news night. Tonight we turn the spotlight on identity, information, and inclusion in nigeria. With the signing of the new nimcy act 2026, the national identity management commission has been handed a stronger mandate to deliver a secure, unified digital identity system for every nigerian.

but what does this mean in practical terms? How will it affect the daily lives of citizens? How will it reshape the way businesses operate and better protect nigerians while making life easier? Helping us unpack these questions is the director general of the national identity management commission. Together, we’ll explore the promise, the pitfalls, and the progress of nigeria’s digital identity journey.

digi, thank you very much for having us in your office. ; thank you for creating the time to be here. ; lovely. Now i’d like us to go straight into this. Now the last time we spoke we touched on a lot of issues but it appears the landscape has changed. You now have the act you so wanted the new nimcy act.

can you tell us about the journey to get that act into place? ; so for us our digital journey started obviously in 2007. As you know, prior to that, there was an act that was repealed to enact the national identity management act 2007, which was done, i think, may 26 in 2007. And what we have now done 19 years after, but it’s never too late.

; and i think that the timing couldn’t be more apt is for the ascent of the new nimc um act, you know, by mr. President, which was done on june 26. Um you know 2026. ; yes. ; and so we’re very excited about it because it then expands our authority, our mandate and enables us to be able to do all the things we need to do.

so the act previously did not capture a lot of things that have happened in 19 years and as you already know that with technology evolving at a rapidly fast rate, you know, there’s so much that needs to be done. And so we wanted to make sure that that was worked on and our authorities have been expanded as it should be.

so the act now reinforces us as a foundational identity trust for nigeria. ; i i’m i’m interested in ensuring that nigerians understand the the key differences. Like you noted 19 years is a long time. In technological terms, it’s more than that because things change very rapidly. I i think one of the things you’ve said is that it will make you the number one, you say the core person in charge.

has that not always been the case? ; so from a citizen’s p perspective, you go to one office, they ask you to fill in one form, you move to another office, they ask you to fill in the same information. So repetitive data collection across board that will stop because it then unifies all identities which means that it’s one identity for all citizens and then it makes life easier for you.

so all you need to do is you know give them your name which they would then verify in real time. Now we have a lot of offices that collect nin but they only collect it on the forms ; on the paper forms. ; they just say submit your nin. We’re using nin to validate, but how do you know that the nin that person submitted is actually a real or a genuine nin? So, you have to make sure that they’re able to make sure through the api integration, they’re able to validate the the nin of that person of that individual. And that’s not just the only

Thing. It makes things a lot easier, a lot faster. It prevents identity fraud. So, for example, it means that if you’re only collecting the name on paper, as i can go and give them your name and say it’s my own name now, and how would they be able to validate it? So we’re trying to make sure that we simplify things for citizens, make sure it’s a seamless access for them to be able to verify themselves across board.

and another beautiful thing we have done is you know we have the n north it was part of things we mentioned the last time and you know with the n north is growing rapidly people are now able to to use it to authenticate their own identity. So which means you don’t even need to wait for them to call up ; true ; you know from our back end through api integration when you go yourself you can do an inerson verification with that application which means you can do it through several uh methods you can definitely use the share code on the

Noth to share with them they can see your identity or you can even scan the qr code of the service you want and you’re able to then authenticate yourself in real time ; you know the way you’re saying this makes it look really how do i put it really nice. Let me put that. But you know a lot of our government offices are not online.

you still just as you noted they’re still collecting on paper. Is there any way you looking at how to help or working with people? ; so immediately that the president has sented the bill the first thing i did was a stakeholder engagement. I have been to at least 25 to 27 offices in the last two weeks. So i’ve seen about 16 ministers.

i’ve seen about seven agency heads. I’ve seen the sgf. I’ve also seen the um head of service and everybody you know is i mean the the love is definitely and the willingness to collaborate is 100%. Everybody is on board you know to ensure that we collaborate. So what we’re doing right now is we’re going around discussing with them and also letting them understand first of all the president has accepted the bill and then letting them know the implications for their different areas of of work.

so how it’s going to help them positively make their lives um you know very easy and also allow them to carry out their functions effectively and seamlessly you know and so we’re doing that we’re also ensuring that any of those databases that have similar roles are all you know unified in that whole process so from the citizen perspective you should have your name ; yes ; it should not be oh i have multiple different names you use your name whatever existing ids have we will definitely integrate them ; and make sure that it becomes one id.

They will harmonize with us. ; okay? ; you know, ; because i was just about to come to that the right now. I’m not sure if the um driver’s license, the voter identity have been integrated yet. ; yes. So, these are part of the things that we’re doing. Um we’ve spoken to driver’s license.

we’re having a meeting with them this week. Okay. ; and we’re doing another round of stakeholders engagement this week and uh we’re speaking to them. So yes, they do request for the name, but we also want to make sure that validation is done in real time. Once validation is done in real time, what that means is when you apply for a driver’s license or you even need to renew your driver’s license, they would rely on the name just like the passport office does, ; you know. Yes.

; for the for passport issuance and also for passport renewals. So for passport issuance you know you use the nin it will autoop populate the form which will reduce your processing time and then you can then proceed to include the information that immigration will require which is their own functional data what we call it which is unique to their role.

so what we’re doing right now is ensuring that for foundational identity there’s only one single source of truth which is the nim. I think one part i felt a lot of people would be happy about was the harsher punishment. And it’s not because i’m wicked or anything like that, but you know, i’m told the new act puts out harsh punishments or has increased the punishment for identity theft and things like that.

; it’s it’s necessary. It is necessary because you see we’re all users of the name including myself. You know, i would leave this office one day, but i want to make sure that president ba’s legacy in this office is that they fixed all the underlying issues here and strengthen the digital identity framework.

and that’s one of the reasons the act was signed into law. And so for me it’s to say that we want to make sure that years after we have left this place that there’s you know continue continuous strengthening of identity and we make sure that people are punished for doing the wrong things.

so the act covers everybody including my staff. So my staff are very hardworking. ; um you know we you know i really like my staff a lot and and the feeling is mutual ; but you know for those that may be a few unscrupulous elements in our midst we don’t want them to tarnish the hard work of the ones that have been working very well that have dedicated their life to name.

we have to make sure that the right things are done. Our kids will use the name. Our great grandkids will use the name. You even get to the point where you can’t do anything else but your name you know. So we have to ensure that that these things are taken care of. So yes asher severe penalties i am unapologetic about it.

the right thing must be done. We must put our foot down when it comes to issues around identity fraud. ; i’m interested also in enforcement. A lot of times we make the laws or the rules but to get them enforced. How is enforcement going to be done? Well, one of the things like generally you know across government is you have a lot of rules, policies, procedures, sops but there’s no enforcement of it but me personally as a [laughter] ; i have been enforcing since i’ve been on board across board and what this would help us to do is we are working with

Ministry of justice and we’re also working with the security agencies. So a lot of collaborations with dss. So for example, if we have front end partners who whose agents are, you know, um unscrupulous or you know misbehaving or we even have illegal agents outside, dss will be on top of it. Um if we have staff issues where our staff act, we won’t even investigate.

we’ll let the icpc do the investigation for us. So there are a lot of partnerships across board. We also partner with the police, the cyber crime, office of the cyber crime um center. What they will do is to make sure anything that has to do with like online fishing sites, illegal sites, people pretending posing as names to steal innocent citizens or suspected citizens data from them, you know, unknowingly for, you know, from the perspective of the citizen.

we will definitely catch them. You know, the internet has a footprint. So, we will definitely catch them and we will prosecute them by law. We will do the right thing. We’ll make sure that within the ambit of the law and within the perview of the law we will definitely address all of these issues that we have we have spoken about ; before we go into more of that act because you know when a lot of people talk about this uh i think the information out there very clearly is you need to get your name.

; yes. ; and the expectation is that every citizen of nigeria should get his name. How how is that movement that registration going? So we started off the word enrollment exercise february 16. There was a presidential directive last year that we should hit the ground running. We must make sure that no citizens are excluded from all of the government intervention programs that are available.

we must make sure that people are captured. Now even to the extent that if you know people that have leprosy will be captured. So whatever infectious diseases that you have as long as you’re a nigerian we will capture you. We want to make sure that no one is excluded. When is it leprosy? Because of the maybe not being able to take fingerprints.

; so when you know like leprosy is a contagious illness. So what if government has a specific intervention program to you know like to alleviate help elevate the cost of that medical illness or they have free uh medicine available for people that have leprosy. You won’t be able to benefit if you’re not captured.

So this is to show you that we’re going you know across ; you made arrangement for the length and breadth of nigeria to capture all of these people. We’re working with civil service organizations who specialize in these areas to make sure that every single person that is classified as a person with disability is included.

and that’s one of the good things about the act. It allows for for us to be able to capture every single person. So there’s a lot of inclusivity around around the new act which was missing from the old act. ; i i when i was thinking about this, i was curious. We’re trying to capture those that are of age.

how are we sure as new births come in? How are you addressing that issue? ; um, i’m sure that if you go back to 2023 in november, the president had flagged off the first baby that was issued a need from birth. ; and so that’s been ongoing since then in collaboration with the national population commission. So we’re doing that making making sure we capture babies from birth and also the revocation of of citizens who have died in real time.

so to make sure that we rest in if somebody has died we rested the name so that nobody can use a dead person’s identity for anything fraudulent. ; okay. But you know between me and you our plan works in the urban sector. ; nigeria has i think a lot of us do not appreciate how big how wide and how diverse nigeria’s terrain is places where you can’t reach by boat you can only reach by boat or bikes or walking stuff.

look when you this your plan i i would like to understand first of all are you monitoring to ensure that children even those born in those places this is happening because it puts your work back if they are not captured at birth and then we have to now start doing that all over again ; that is a solid question that you asked we have a monitoring team in place that will monitor that and we have kpis okay ; you know so we have measurable targets to ensure that this is being done and we have a team that a working um team with um collaboration with npc to make sure

That this is being done so how many births have happened on a daily basis you know have they gotten their name so we try to identify whatever gaps are possible and close them and another interesting thing that we have done is you know that we have expanded we’re in the diaspora so in african countries like leoto that you not expect us to be we’re in china we’re in cuba we’re in brazil so we have nin um diaspora partners that help us to make sure nigerians abroad are not disenfranchised from the registration process. And so

We’re trying to make sure that we capture all nigerians outside the country and in the country. Now we’re working with the communities. ; so on the state level, we’ve got the state coordinators and then we have the regional heads and regional coordinators and we also have territorial directors. They all work in sync to be able to make sure that they go around they get all the key association heads you know in you know um you know aware of what we’re doing and they also see all the different chiefs the ballet equivalent

The obs you know the you know the sultans the shakes or the obas you know um in in different parts of the country you know to make sure that we’re able to speak to them at a community level, get their buy in and be able to, you know, get them to also help us speak to the people, you know, on ground to be able to assist us.

Now, reaching the nooks and crannies, we have partnered with the id4 project, world bank, which is a world bank initiative to get front-end partners who have been our partners for a few years now to be able to reach those nooks and crannies, you know, across board. So, we’ve trained about 33,000 agents on the front end partner side of things and we’re evaluating to make sure are you there? Are you going to the ws you’re meant to be going? If you didn’t go um why were you able to go? Was there an insecurity issue in those words, you

Know, or why were you not able to, you know, enroll or is there a a low turnout at what level? So, that we’re able to then make sure we, you know, if there’s a low turnout, we go back we strategize and see how can we boost the numbers there you know and the rest and why we are doing it at the community level is because that’s the closest to every single citizen some citizens can they don’t have funds to go to their local government you know i want to make sure we make it seamless the key word there is to make it as easy for people

To be able to get their name enrollment as citizens of nigeria rather than making them stress them stress themselves you know in nigeria for for so many years every process is cumbersome so name see how can we ensure that all the stress citizens have had related to the name in the past how can we ensure we improve in these areas and make sure it’s as seamless as possible for them that’s one of the reasons we automated the modification process because we looked at jam for example you have young kids you know you have to

Make sure that you go from a child to an adult and there’s you have to do that conversion here from child migration we call it to um adult migration and that process should be as seamless as possible but you then find that when i came on board i found that there are so many bottlenecks around it.

so we had to review those processes to make it easier. We then obviously did the self modification online for you to authenticate your identity using your own biometrics yourself confirming you who you are and we have all the data protection cyber security provisions on there that you must take concept and all these things.

so we just wanted to make it easier for for you know kids. How difficult can it be for you to go and make sure you do your nyc? We needed to make sure that with the nin we’re able to you know streamline that process. So we’ve actually done a lot you know you know um across board there’s also the instance of for example now and this is part of the reason we have to see the minister for education there little little issues that can be straightened that would make nigerians happy.

so if you look at the instances of okay you have your certificate ; yes ; but you want to go abroad maybe your passport your name on your passport does not match your certificate all of those issues or you want to go your what’s your name secondary school is now different from your name in ; i have a very good case colleague’s daughter whether she went and changed her name by herself so she couldn’t log to the nysc because the name on her name was different from the name she did and it’s s it just came up with a lot of

Issues. ; so all of those issues we’ve looked at it ; we’ve reviewed it and we’ve said it’s a two-way thing and this is one thing you mentioned how do you ensure that whatever you’re doing is also affected at the other end. So we’re making sure that we follow through you know and then we looked at it and we’re like okay how do we resolve this issues we cannot say because of a name change ; you cannot go and sit an exam or you can’t get an admission into university or you can’t get admission into a master’s course at outside of the

Country you know what i mean so how do we just make sure all of these are done so this these are part of the the changes we’re bringing to identify the bottlenecks for citizens and how can we make sure that end to end that process is seamless for them ; i i think the one that came across very clearly was um the issue of which one is your first name, which is your second name, which is your surname.

and some of us just jumble it up and then later it becomes a problem whenever you are signing on the name tells you no, no, no, this is not how you wrote [laughter] it there and now just starts. ; so we also made it easier for citizens to even download their their name ; um digital sleep. ; okay. ; by the name of now it’s free.

; okay. We actually used to charge for it but it’s actually free as part of you know our you know how would i say it way to sort of relieve the burden for citizens. So go there and go and print. You don’t need to come to my office to modify your name. You don’t need to come to my office to you know download your digital sleep.

you just go online and do it and you just use your id card on the not. When you’re traveling locally you are going from lagos to abuja you’re going from abuja to kaduna. Just show them your id card to identify yourself. It’s on your n north not your digital id card is there which is free ; so the physical id card will be optional we’re just trying to make things a lot easier now i wanted to find out from you before we leave this point the people at the grassroot you’ve sent out your teams what’s the feedback you’re getting because sometimes getting people to buy

In is not usually easy but what’s been their own experience ; so i would tell you that since this administration has been on board um there is a lot more awareness, a lot more people understand why they need the nin, but you know it’s never enough. As a media expert yourself, you know that there has to be continuous awareness programs being done.

and so that’s what we’re doing, ensuring that we get the awareness out. So we now have a nimc talk time um radio show which will be starting. It should air every wednesday on every single major local tv station in each state that the grassroots listen to. So that they understand, you know, what ; what our our our shows are about and our products and their services, ; why they need to.

; exactly. So, that’s one way we’re doing it. Um we’re doing a lot we’ve done a lot of flyers you know because of the word enrollment you know taking it to churches taking it to so we’re working with religious leaders also on the grassroot level on the state level so that our state coordinators are speaking to them to also inform their church members or the you know the mosque leaders are informing their people.

so we want to make sure everybody everybody is aware at this point in time you’re probably going to need your need for employment. You know, it’s going to reduce a lot of fraud, a lot of fraud across body, a lot of identity fraud, it will definitely crash it a great deal. ; if if it’s going to change the way ; especially when you’re using your biometrics to authenticate yourself.

so, i’ll give you an example. Now, the act one of the new provisions of the act is you cannot collect biometric data anymore. Only nic can. ; so, which means if you want to validate somebody’s biometric, you will call it from nim. Let’s take a short break now. We’ll be right back. ; welcome back from our short break.

i i would like us to pick up from where we stopped because i think i found that really interesting. You said something about there will be no need for different components to do biometrics again. They would they should just depend on your on the mean and the background you’ve already picked. ; i mean biometrics collection is one very way to be able to confirm and verify and validate that this person is what they say they are cuz you can see their face right and you can obviously know that it’s them. Um however it’s not right for

Multiple places to be collecting repetitive information like i mentioned earlier whether it’s your field information but most especially your biometrics your biometrics should be housed safely ; you know under a under a a a custodian like nimcy that understands the data protection um implications of these things you can’t just put your biometrics in in anybody’s hands because of deep fake and the so it now means that going forward duplicate duplicate collection of biometrics is no longer tolerated or allowed and the law is

Explicitly clear about it in the act. It literally means that if you go and do it it is a punishable offense. M ; so you will then need to rely on nimsy as the single source of truth for foundational identity which includes the biometrics of the individuals and biomet and the verification of of any individual ; and this this takes effect immediately ; immediately immediately but what we’re doing is just to ensure we create a lot of awareness around it so we will obviously educate the public the private sector right now we’re doing the public

Sector education ensuring every uh um arm of government understands what we’re saying. So we’ll definitely also go and see the legislative i mean the the judiciary um you know we started with the minister of justice the attorney general general of the federal of the federation and then we move to you know going around to see maybe the cjn and you know speaking to the nba nigeria bar association just speaking to everyone and having sensitization um webinars seminars you know physical workshops around people understanding

What they act means ; this this new act has put a lot more work on the shoulder of the commission and a lot of times nigerians find that systems sometimes cannot take the load what have you done to ensure that if you get all you want because it’s put a lot a lot of people will now be doing trying to get to verify things on your website from you how are you prepared to handle the load ; you know the first time you interviewed me, one of the key things i told you at the time was we’re starting we’re going to start doing our upgrades for our

Technological infrastructure. So today i am pleased to inform you that we’ve done quite a bit of upgrades and we actually have a new system. We have a names 1.0 which has been helping us with registration but we have a names 2.0 which has a massive component for it open source just because we’re looking at how do we lower our cost and all the systems we have right now are legacy systems that basically have a lot of you know vendor locked in agreements so we wanted nims 2.

0 i know that was free that wasn’t vendor locked in so that we can sort of say nimic owns the end to end and also at the same time you know going forward the maintenance course will be a lot you know less so we’re actually signing the si agreement with the world bank um in a couple of weeks on that nis 2.0 and i’m very excited about it.

that project will be done by december 2027 under the id4d loan that we have and uh i’m looking forward to to that new system. But right now, we have done all the key upgrades to be able to accommodate the integration and harmonization. So for example, our abs biometric um expansion happened. It was 100 million um records before.

it’s been expanded to 250 million records. So that will be able to accommodate that. In terms of verification, it used to take about 15 seconds to verify someone’s identity. It’s about 8 milliseconds now. That’s a lot in terms of ; i’m sure some of us can’t measure that. ; exactly. In terms of improvement and how quickly quickly can it can be. Yeah.

so our systems in terms of our infrastructure has been expanded in the back end to be able to accommodate that load that ensure even load distribution across. Yes. You can speak for your own back end but it depends on the network the person is using ; to depend how fast you’ll be able to ; so you know there are standards and this is where you have standards and this is where standards come into place you know what is the standards what are the standards for interoperability because what we’re talking about is

Interoperability so we’ve in integrated quite a lot of um government ndas databases however [snorts] there’s still some that still needs to scale up so we’re looking at all of these areas to make make sure that everything is in sync. We don’t want you getting you know servers that are not in line or would not be able to you know ; pack is that is name that is not ; exactly so there will be standards ac issued across board in terms of you know interoperability data sharing you know and and the rest and this this is why

We’re also working closely with nita on this because our mandate also speaks to digital public infrastructure so which we’re the home of digital public infrastructure which speaks to shared systems that are connected, interconnected that will serve citizens and government and makes it easier for the citizens to be able to access whether um any services across both whether they’re private sector services or government related services and this speaks to identity um payments and data exchange layer. So that really helps us.

So we’re working with nida to ensure that the standards are set across board you know and this is one of the relationships that we’re we’re ; yeah i saw that i saw that i think you had meetings with ; yes we had some meetings and also neida is handing over um the the pki that they’ve been working on you know they started something around pki ; sorry please pki ; which is public key infrastructure so public key infrastructure is basically the technology that your digital trust is anchored on ; okay ; so i’ll give you an example you want to

Sign a document online. ; signing it online should validate that you are who you say you are. Correct. So what pi does is then says okay i you know issue you a set of um encryption keys public sector or private encryption keys or you know linked to a digital certificate and what you want to do is whatever communication you are sending to me we need to be able to authenticate that one.

; mhm. ; the guy sending the information is authenticated and validated. So we know he’s who he says he is. And then the device ; he’s sending also is authenticated because we also want to make sure that we know the device. We recognize that device and the rest. And this entire process makes sure that your messaging is as private as it can be.

but the key word here is secure. ; you want to make sure that whatever end to end transaction is h that is happening is as secure as possible. ; it’s not open to third parties. ; yes. So piki is technically the backbone ; and they handed this over to you. ; so the pi is the backbone for digital identity and digital public infrastructure.

so yes, we’re obviously doing an audit to see what they have and you know we’re already talking. So the handover would would be done, but this is part of the conversations that we’ve been having. We’ll still continue to work with them because nida’s job is really setting standards across for technology and the rest.

so we have a lot of a lot of collaboration to do because of this act. You know, i’m trying to think of all the issues that nigerians will want to know. And i think one of the key ones for me is so far, how many nigerians have you been able to get registered on the name? ; as of last week, 137 371081. That’s 137 million. Yes. ; okay.

and and i you said something that i hadn’t occurred to me. My understanding was we’re doing the nin for in country but it appears you’re going to capture those that are also out. ; so we government needs to plan. ; yes. ; and government needs to plan for a citizens in country and also for citizens outside the country. ; if you look at some countries you will find that for example like lebanon 50% of their gdp is raised from outside the country from the diaspora you know.

so ; and that money is what helps them you know in that the remittance comes back in to the country. So you want to also make sure that nigerians abroad are not excluded from we live in a digital age. They’re not excluded from services in nigeria. They should be able to access any private sector service that they want to access in nigeria.

you know i want to make sure make it seamless for them. We cannot say you have to fly back to nigeria to be able to access that service. No, there are already services that are online. So, you want to ensure that you enable crossber transactions, you know, as seamlessly and as freely as it can be.

but how can i authenticate you the way you say you are? You know, and you’re living abroad. Am i going to fly with my documents in my hand, come to your house and start doing going from door to door, you’re a nigerian? Mhm. ; let me collect your information. I’ve seen you with my corokuro rise.

i can validate you who you say you are. No. So when you use the name which is already a trusted service then it makes it a lot easier for you to be able to you know validate and do transactions you know wherever you are from the comfort of your home and this is where we’re going. This is the direction in which we’re moving you know from a government’s perspective we want to make sure that all the databases are harmonized you know for identity as a single source of foundational truth and we also want to ensure that you would have to scale up to meet up. So we don’t

Want you to go and be requesting you want one technology to install but is it in alignment with the vision? Is it in alignment with what we need to do to be able to you know uh build the necessary trans digital transformation required for us be able to meet mr. President’s 1 trillion era digital you know 1 trillion era economy initiative which a large component of it depends on on the digital economy.

so these are some of the you know initiatives we’re taking to be able to make sure that and we have targets you know so we’re also working with the office of the special advisor of policy coordination to the president um miss adisa bala oban on how best we can ensure that you know ; all that is been so she’s going to you know come on board and ensure that everything is being monitored kpis are tracked for us to be able to ensure deliverables are being met [snorts] under the renewed build hope agenda in line with mr. President’s eight point

Priority. ; i i i think one thing that is striking me very clearly is that you’re getting a lot of data. ; you’re getting data of nigerians abroad. You’re getting data of children being born. You’re getting data of a lot of data. It’s even possible you might be able to answer the issue of our population number at a point.

don’t you think? When once we’re done counting, we should be able to then say give a proper estimate of the total number of nigerians that actually have a lean ; outside of the country and in country. ; you know, for example, when you look at cases where nigerians even need to be repatriated, ; you need to be able to plan.

government needs to be able to plan effectively. The budget around planning effectively, you must be able to identify the citizens know that they have their needs. You you know you’re dealing with real numbers not just based on you know ; um oh a projection you know we can’t keep running a government based on projection.

we want to be able to say okay this is what we have these are the total numbers we have and how do we then plan ahead to make sure that we provide you know for our citizens based on what we have. Once you’re able to identify the total number of citizens you have, then planning effectively would be a breeze for you because the foundation for that is we know what we need to do for this community in this place for that community in that place in this regional people.

; absolutely. And we’re planning for actual people that do exist, you know, and you’re able to you’ll find out that a lot of existing registers have a lot of dead people on it across board, ; you know. So how do you we need to be able to expunge these dead people from those days so that we know that ; all the beneficiaries here are living they’re alive ; you know people died during covid as they been expuned on other databases list you know so it helps to improve service delivery helps to improve efficiency in government it’s not

Supposed to be used through you know for witch hunting or anything it’s really about planning how do we plan across but how do we ensure we’re able to deliver effectively for our people? And another thing when you look at the budgets you will see oh database database database database here.

so how do we ensure that there’s a unification of all databases and when you’re able to have a central point for that you notice that your budget ; would would reduce. So this will start to answer a lot of you know a lot of you know um so the benefits issues around yes we ensure financial inclusion and then you bridge that digital divide that we have across board as little as it should be we should be able to make sure that nobody’s financially excluded in the in the economy including those in the informal sector you know or those that are underprivileged or those that

Live in you know un undeserved or underserved communities. We need to ensure that these things are being addressed and we can only do that when we have data. I ; i would like to i think i pick up on the point you made very clearly there. We’re planning for people ; but the key point will be you’re planning for nigerians.

how do you ensure this registration is capturing nigerians? We’re working with the nigerian immigration service, you know, especially in across board to ensure that, you know, we meet the requirements of those that should be captured and so in our border state offices. So we have nic in a lot of the nis offices and we have nis in in a lot of the nic offices.

So that would help a great deal for us to be able to ensure that you know all the border control measure you know um measures are in place and they are met accordingly ; because some of times you hear that some people have are holding nigerian passports abroad and they are not nigerians they and they use it to cause a lot of problems but i’m i’m glad to hear you’re doing that ; all of these issues will be addressed with the expansion of the act so all of that will definitely go to what we have done with immigration is beautiful and i

Think theor honorable minister um olubi tuno, honorable minister for interior for the good work he has done so far under the leadership of mr. President because he was able to bring us together you know we’re both under interior. So he was able to bring us together to say look the name is the single source of truth.

so for issuance of passport the information on that name is what is used so that you don’t have issues around name modification in the future for new passport entrance. But for the renewal of existing passports, what happens at the back end is the existing data immigration had on the previous passports they had issued for you will be compared to what you have for the name.

if what’s on the immigration side does not match ; was on the ni. They will send you back to nimc. So this is what informed one of the reasons that informed us automating the modification uh pro process. How can you get this done quickly online and how can we ensure that it is you that is modifying not somebody else? So you’re required to use your biometrics to be able to authenticate your identity.

what happens is it takes your picture and immediately matches that picture against what i have in my database for you and the rest you know and we also have to make sure for the biometrics collection that’s been happening across board a lot of it is not account standard. So you need to be able to ensure that it’s it’s an account standard because the id card the eid card is a government issued document.

so passport is a government issued document. You need to make sure everything is you know the standard. So we are definitely working with you know quite you know we’re making a lot of changes across board you know ; for and little little by little by little. ; i think the one i’m happy about you’re talking about how if there is a issue how to resolve it quickly.

can one resolve it with the is it nin authent? ; so the nin o allows you to authenticate yourself and also allows for user consent management. That means that you are the user ; you can give you know permission you are giving permission for somebody else to access your data. ; i want to use the example just following like you did just now the i’m at the nin um passport office.

; yes. ; and there’s a problem within the last time i did my so you go onto our self-service modification application to ; and i can do that. ; yeah. Online immediately the minute you get it done. ; i don’t have to leave there and come to town. ; you just go you just go on your device. You get it done and you don’t need to leave there and they should be able to see it instantly.

; beautiful. And that’s that’s the real time. ; the only time anyone doesn’t see it instantly is they’re not doing real time validation. That now brings me back to ; real time validation. Real time validation or verification literally means that if you make that change now it should be reflected on the opposite end.

if it’s not reflected it means the opposite end is not checking it’s just keeping your name on their local server which they shouldn’t as opposed to verifying it in real time. So with passport now you see the change immediately. Yes. That’s the handshake we’ve done with you know um im nigerian immigration service. You know we’ve done quite a bit.

i i think nigerians will say for those that use the um what do you call ; the self- service modification? ; yes. Not only the self service, i’m saying even use their phones apps and things that some it makes it look very easy a lot of times when you go to check something. So we’re creating a lot of awareness to be able to push that information like if you’re a student download you have your digital id card like if police stops you for example on the road show them your when they ask you for your id documents show them log into your n show them your digital id

Card that is enough if you’re traveling ; show you who you are ; yes if you’re if you’re traveling local travel show them your not this is your id ; do you think we’re getting we can get do you see us getting to a place where you can hold that card and whether it is your driver’s license, your whatever that number can serve that.

; absolutely. So on the nov at some point in time, you’re going to see your driver’s license. Every single different id you’ve had, it’s all going to be linked on there. So if you go onto your nov, i don’t know if you’ve downloaded it. ; i have downloaded it. [laughter] ; if you go onto it, if you log onto it, uh may i show you on my phone quickly? ; i want to show you what we’ve done.

you will see your tax id automatically. So for those that we’ve harmonized with, you start to see your information on there. So i’m going to go to my n north application now and i’m going to quickly log in as you can see. You can see my id card. ; yes. ; okay. And then on here you can see scan your qr code, get a share code, do more with nino.

when i click on this, you would immediately see you can print your name sleep, your digital name sleep or you can go to you can see credit ; whatever services they have then you can see nhi your nhi number would pop up here. We’re done with integrations this week. So you see your automatic nhi numbers there and your tax id.

let me go to my tax id. ; you can see my tax id. Don’t zoom in too much but [laughter] my tax id is on here. So everything every single thing that you have and what we’re going to also have is your postcode will be here also your digital postcode which nost you had that meeting with post. ; yes.

so we are collaborating you know um what she’s been able to do which is fantastic is to be able to ensure that you know for logistics purposes she’s got a digital ; um postcode okay ; for every building in nigeria. So for that for you for that to be able to work you need to be able to have identity linked to it. So we’ve done that you know integration and it should be on up and running you know very shortly.

so i’ll speak to the technical team. I’m sure in the next two weeks we should be good to go with the with the 9. So you’ll be able to see that on there. Another good thing with the nin is in terms of transparency in line with data protection act. You can also on on the not you can also see the list of people that have called up to verify your identity that you know you have allowed and the ones you can you also want to approve yourself.

you can approve it from your phone ; and you can also reject it after because they may only need to authenticate it once. ; they may not need to i mean verify you once. You may not need to do it several times. ; give me a time frame. Give me a time frame you’re looking at when you think this will be done. ; so what we’re doing in terms of ammonization now with the databases which is the biggest part of of the of the work that we need to do is to ensure that we digitally ammonize you.

; yeah. Without necessarily having to start moving the physical databases because what everybody’s taking now is you’re moving all the so that infrastructure part will come in later but most importantly how do we speak to each other as it is now and how do we ensure there’s a two-way flow of information and it moves fast and that’s what we’re working on so that’s one of the things we’ve done with that digital handshake on the ammonization we’ve done that with the tax and you know we’re doing that with nh hi and we start to

Build up cross. We’ve done that with with student loans because that was a lot easier cuz they just started just started. So it was easier to just credit cop is easier too because they just started, you know, um under this administration. So for those that just started, they’re already using the name. And then also for cash transfers, you know, you have to make sure you validate your identity.

we’re getting to the point where like it is in some countries once they punch your name they can see your debt profile your credit everything will be on your your identity digitally ; are you sure you don’t want to leave the media come and work for us ; no i think it’s you that is giving us an understanding it’s making the things a lot clearer but you know i think at the point i would like you to do because it means that this will mean more to people how do we keep this safe because if it has so much information about you our our

Understanding from what you said you are doing your own end to keep that safe but how do we the people who have this information ; there’s going to be a lot of education enlightenment awareness across board don’t forget that the old act there was no data protection act available cyber security bill was enacted in 2015 ; data protection 2023 and our own act was 2007 so i mean if you look at the new act now it has everything in line with data protection also the cyber security aspect of it but we want to educate

People quite a lot. So we’re going to be working and doing a lot of collaboration st external stakeholder engagements with the public you know relying heavily you know on you know local community leaders also to help us you know you know ensure that the information is out there you know people were doing a lot of media media work we’re doing a lot of radio jingles i mentioned the radio talk show earlier um we’re trying to do a lot of billboards so that people can see it and we’re trying to also ensure that user

Accessibility for language. So which means that in different languages pigeon ha english um ebo you know and i think we mentioned either tala or something breaking it down like the top the largest um ethnic based on the largest ethnic groups you know across border make sure that people are able to understand but we’re working with noa ; good ; the ministry of information under noa national orientation agency to help us push this information down to the grassroot level because they have about at least 75 languages materials

Converted in at least 75 languages. So we send our materials to them, they convert it for us and help us push it also down to level. ; but give my viewers something to go home with. You want to keep your name safe. You want to keep your information safe. What do you advise? ; you want to keep your name safe.

your name is already safe on the noth. Use the no as your single sign on for access to any service that you want to get. You can use your noth. Your id card is there. It’s safe. I’ll tell you that 62% of the of the fraud that happens usually comes from that user. That citizen is the one that unknowingly gives out their information or leaves information lying carelessly around a family member that takes that information and uses it to do identity fraud or anything.

so, it’s always most likely the users that don’t understand that. So this is where we’re creating a lot of awareness on how to be able to keep your identity safe. We’ve provided a safe platform for you which is the nenoth. You have access to your data within the data protection um boundaries and you’re able to then do what you need to carry out safely on that application.

; dig to thank you very much for the time and uh for the work you’re doing. We’ll keep monitoring to see how it goes. ; thank you. As we as you’ve put it everybody’s identity will be clear on the name ; so much ; thank you for coming ; now it’s clear that more and more the issue of the national identification number is going to take a firm hold in our country and we must all be ready for it nimia act 2026 has set the stage for a future where identity is not just a card or a number but the backbone of which

Citizens access services, how businesses operate, and how government delivers on its promises. Well, that’s our discussion tonight. We would love to hear from you, your reactions, your questions, and your contributions to the conversation. Can link up with us through our social media handles and email.

and if you would like to catch up on past episodes, simply search news night on the channels tv youtube page, click on the playlist, and just scroll and take a peek. That’s it from us tonight. Thank you for staying with us, and enjoy the rest of your day.