World Bank highlights unpaid agents in Nigeria's NIN enrolment

The World Bank has flagged the issue of unpaid Front-End Partners (FEPs) hired by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) for the enrolment of Nigerians for National Identification Numbers (NINs). According to the World Bank's October 2026 restructuring paper for Nigeria’s Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project, these FEPs have not received payments since January 2026.

As of September 30, 2026, approximately 121 million Nigerians had received NINs, leaving a shortfall of about 59 million. The World Bank emphasized the need for NIMC's billing system to produce audited payment reports to ensure timely payments to partners.

The deadline for making the Learning Management System (LMS) operational is set for October 31, 2026, with a target to deploy 7,000 devices by January 2027. NIMC aims to increase monthly enrolment from 1.5 million to 3.9 million to meet the 180 million target.

Additionally, NIMC plans to collaborate with the Ministry of Education for school-level enrolment and engage local governments to reach underserved populations.