By Juliet Umeh
NIGERIA’S multi-billion naira digital identity crusade has run into a wall of skepticism. While the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) is pulling out the celebratory drums on the international stage, declaring an absolute victory over the era of fragmented databases, the everyday reality for millions of Nigerians paints a jarringly different picture of systemic gridlock, exorbitant correction fees, and analogue bureaucracy.
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The Director-General of NIMC, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, set off the fireworks at the ID4Africa Annual General Meeting in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She boldly claimed that the National Identification Number (NIN) has officially matured into the nation’s undisputed master identity infrastructure.
According to NIMC, the chaotic decades of government agencies operating isolated, non-communicating data silos are over. In this new regime, taxation, immigration, banking, and telecom networks are supposedly plugged into a real-time, singular verification artery.
