Following the expiration of the deadline given to bank customers to link their National Identification Number (NIN) and Bank Verification Number (BVN) to their accounts, there was confusion across the country last week. The banks’ action followed a circular issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on December 1, 2023, mandating existing customers to complete the full profiling of accounts established through agents within the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System. The circular stipulated that all funded accounts or wallets must be placed on “Post No Debit or Credit” status, with no further transactions permitted until compliance was achieved. As the March 1, 2024 deadline for linking NIN/BVN to their bank accounts and wallets approached, Nigerians besieged the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) even as they raised concerns about the challenges they were experiencing while verifying their NIN in compliance with the directive by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). Indeed, media reports indicated that about 85.51 million bank customers have trouble withdrawing from their bank accounts by Friday, March 1, following their inability to link their National Identification Numbers (NINs) and/or Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) to their accounts. This was based on data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) which showed that Nigeria had 146 million active bank customers (individual) in December 2022, whereas by January 26, 2024, the BVN count on the NIBSS portal was 60.49 million while about 104 million NINs had been issued by December 2023.

At the moment, the DMBs are still experiencing a surge as panicky customers struggle to actualise the NIN-account linkage. And while the official story is of BVN-NIN linkage with accounts, it seems that it is actually NIN that is in contention, as customers who were previously allocated BVNs are being mandated to link their accounts with it (NIN). Now, only recently, Nigerians went through hell trying to register again for the NIN slips that they had been issued by the telecoms companies two years ago when advocacy for the NIN-SIM linkage was strident. In a move that suggested that the telecoms companies had either lost the bio-data of customers they obtained in circumstances that were very excruciating for the latter, the telecoms operators asked customers to report in person to their various offices for NIN revalidation. And to underscore their resolve, they promptly blocked GSM lines that were adjudged to have come short in the SIM-NIN requirement even when many of those affected had in fact been allocated NINs after a strenuous, deliberately complicated process.

We wonder why the government continues to subject Nigerians to hardship while implementing these so-called tech policies. Millions of Nigerians registered for the NIN but were required to do it again, and now bank customers were given a week’s notice to link their NIN with their accounts. Worse still, the NIN-account linkage has been for the most part impossible to do online simply because the codes that customers are supposed to use while carrying it out are not yielding the expected results. Customers are informed about the ‘failure’ of their efforts and advised to “try again later.” Meanwhile, under the so-called ‘Telco charge’, they keep getting debited for the BVN-NIN linkage they were unable to do online, and somehow this deduction from their accounts never seems to be subject to network glitches!

Just why is a government that already has people’s BVN numbers requesting their NIN numbers? Are the details being sought after basically not the same? Worse still, when kidnappers strike, all the so-called benefits of BVN/NIN become untenable, as the security agencies are unable to track and hunt down the outlaws. In any case, people grow up and reach account-opening age everyday, and so putting a timeline to NIN-bank account linkage is a temporary activity at best, although the government is giving the impression of permanence as if new bank accounts will not be created. Why the unending requests by banks and government for citizens to keep registering and re-registering for NIN and for it to be linked to their BVN? What would it take for the government to stop disturbing citizens about NIN linkage even when it is apparent that they are yet to see its functionality in terms of helping to trace and identify those involved in crime?

We are aware that the plethora of identifications could be, and indeed ought to have been, consolidated into one that would serve all purposes, if not for the corruption underpinning the workings of the platforms. The government should stop using Nigerians as laboratory pigs on identity monitoring even when it is clear that there is a lack of focus on what it wants and how it is to be achieved. Getting appropriate identity platforms to work for all purposes for all Nigerians should not be unattainable given the years that have been spent on the forlorn process. Instead of playing games with registration and re-registration, the government should make up its mind about what it wants to do and work at having the real infrastructure in place once and for all, and devoid of corrupt manipulation.

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