The Director-General of Nigeria's National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Abisoye Coker-Odusote, has acknowledged that the National Identification Number (NIN) is not always effective in tracking kidnappers and terrorists. She made this admission during an appearance on Channels Television, where she explained the limitations of the NIN system despite the mandatory NIN-SIM linkage policy.
How kidnappers evade NIN tracking
Coker-Odusote explained that kidnappers often use the phones of their victims, making it difficult to trace them through the NIN. 'A lot of the time, you find out the kidnappers use the phones of the people they have abducted, which means how do you trace them because they are not using their own phones?' she said. By using victims' devices, criminals effectively hide behind the registered identities of innocent people, rendering the NIN trail useless in those scenarios.
Possibility of non-Nigerian kidnappers
The NIMC DG also raised the possibility that some kidnappers may not be enrolled in Nigeria's identity database at all. She suggested that certain abductions are carried out by individuals brought into the country days before the crime specifically to execute it. 'There is a theory that it may be possible that these kidnappers are not Nigerians and are brought into the country 48 or 72 hours before a kidnapping takes place, specifically for that purpose. I'm not insinuating anything, but if that were the case, they naturally would not be captured in our database,' she said. She framed the claim as a theory rather than confirmed intelligence but said it represented one of the scenarios her commission had considered.
NIN's role in Nigeria's security architecture
Coker-Odusote maintained that the NIN remains central to Nigeria's security architecture, but its effectiveness depends heavily on collaboration between security agencies, telecom operators, and other institutions. The Federal Government made NIN registration compulsory for all Nigerians and legal residents, tying it to SIM card activation, passport applications, bank account opening, and access to several government programmes. The policy was sold partly on the promise of improved security, with the idea that a traceable identity system would make it harder for criminals to operate anonymously.
Challenges to the NIN system
President Bola Tinubu's signing of the NIMC Act 2026 marks a historic overhaul of Nigeria's digital public infrastructure. However, Coker-Odusote's comments complicate that narrative, suggesting that determined criminals have found ways to work around a system that millions of Nigerians were compelled to enroll in. NIMC has consistently maintained that the NIN is an identity management tool rather than a surveillance system, and that tracking criminals requires broader inter-agency coordination beyond what the commission can provide on its own.
