According to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the number of Nigerians living abroad who had National Identification Numbers (NIN) increased by 563.57% from 55,181 in February 2022 to 366,164 in February 2023.
As at February 22, 2023, 96.5 million people worldwide had NINs, up from 75.36 million as of February 21, 2022, according to NIMC. This represents a 28.05% increase, media outfit, Techeconomy reports.
NIMC did not provide a breakdown of the nations that Diaspora Nigerians are registered in, in contrast to how NIN registrations in Nigeria are broken down into states.
However, in 2020, a year after launching the diaspora enrollment exercise, the Director-General of NIMC, Aliyu Aziz, disclosed that enrolment was available for Nigerians in 15 countries.
In September 2022, the DG said almost 90 million Nigerians had enrolled for the NIN.
“Without sounding immodest, NIMC has made great strides on so many fronts in the last three years,” he said. “From just over 1,000 enrolment centers and 2,000 enrolment devices across the country, NIMC, in partnership with its licensed enrolment partners, now has over 15,000 enrolment centers and over 29,000 enrolment devices deployed nationwide.
“This is one of the reasons enrolments have increased tremendously, with over 89 million NINs generated successfully. On the international level, NIMC today has diaspora enrolment centers in over 40 countries, with more centers and countries scheduled to be added in the coming months.”
