The Federal Government has requested an additional 12 months to complete Nigeria’s $430 million Digital Identification for Development Project, with about $196 million of the funding still undisbursed and National Identification Number (NIN) enrolment falling 59 million short of its target.
The request was contained in a World Bank restructuring document dated October 22, 2026, obtained from the bank’s website. The proposed extension would move the project’s closing date from December 31, 2026, to December 31, 2027.
According to the report, the government made the request on May 8, 2026. If approved, it would represent the third extension since the project received approval in February 2020, bringing the total extension period to 42 months, or three and a half years. The project was initially expected to close in June 2024 before receiving a six-month extension and a subsequent two-year extension.
An assessment of the financing showed that approximately $234 million, representing 54.4 per cent of the total funding, had been disbursed, leaving about $196 million, or 45.6 per cent, outstanding. The financing package consists of $115 million from the World Bank’s International Development Association, $100 million equivalent from the French Development Agency and $215 million equivalent from the European Investment Bank.
The project, which became effective in December 2021, is designed to expand access to identification services through a secure and inclusive national identity system.
However, as of September 30, 2026, approximately 121 million Nigerians had obtained their NINs, against the target of 180 million, leaving a gap of 59 million.
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has reaffirmed its commitment to achieving the target, although the World Bank noted that monthly enrolment would need to increase from the current average of 1.5 million to 3.9 million. This represents an increase of about 160 per cent.
The report also clarified that the number of people enrolled is different from the number of successfully generated NINs. More than 140 million enrolment records had been captured by September 14, but only 121 million had completed biometric and demographic validation, including duplicate checks.
Women and children also remain significantly below their enrolment targets. As of June 2026, 40.4 million women and girls had obtained NINs, compared with a target of 79 million, while 26.3 million children below the age of 16 had been registered against a target of 60.83 million.
The World Bank identified delayed payments to enrolment partners as another challenge, noting that some partners had not received payments since January 2026. It said the billing system must generate audited payment reports to facilitate the outstanding payments.
Other outstanding activities include deploying 7,000 procured mobile devices by January 2027, training enrolment agents, expanding registration to wards nationwide and commencing enrolment exercises in schools by December 2026. The report noted that the ward-level campaign had generated 10 million NINs since March.
Another major reason for the extension is the delayed transition from NIMC’s existing technology infrastructure to the National Identity Management System 2.0.
The contract for the new platform was signed on September 15, 2026, following a prolonged procurement process. Although implementation would ordinarily take about 18 months, the timeline has been reduced to 15 months, with full deployment and data migration scheduled for December 15, 2027.
The new system is expected to replace fragmented proprietary platforms with an open-source solution that will improve operational capacity, interoperability and data protection.
Meanwhile, although the NINAuth platform was launched in May 2025, the project’s digital authentication targets remain unmet pending its integration into the new system.
The World Bank warned that failure to extend its participation would also affect the other financing partners, stating that all co-financiers would have to close their involvement if the World Bank’s extension was not approved.
Source: PUNCH
