The director –General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mr Aliyu Aziz, made the announcement on Wednesday in Abuja that Nigeria has commenced enrolment and issuance of National Identification Numbers (NIN) to its citizens in 16 countries across 5 continents. Mr Aziz said that as of March this year, capturing and issuance of NIN to Nigerians by the NIMC had taken place in the US, China, South Africa, Austria, Germany and India. He confirms that the issuing of identification has also taken place in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Togo, Canada, Benin Republic, Italy, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates. This however did not state the exact number of Nigerians in the diaspora so far captured in the identity registration but assured that Nigerians everywhere would be registered in the end.
The chief of the NIMC disclosed also that 11 million Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) had been harmonised by the organisation and that additional 25 million holders of the Bank Verification Numbers would be harmonised in the second quarter of the year. Since the NIMC was started in 2012, the registration scheme has registered 41.5 million citizens and legal residents. 12 million people between 40 -59 years of age were already registered. 18 million between 25-39 years and 5 million between 20-24 years.