The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has reacted to the claim that those who registered for BVN automatically have NIN.
According to NIMC’s spokesperson, Kayode Adegoke, the claim is incorrect as the commission must capture peoples’ data before allocating NIN to them.
Adegoke, however, admitted that the commission had earlier harmonized its data with some BVN data.
The clarification is in response to a trending claim on social media that Nigerians who enrolled for the Bank Verification Number (BVN) as early as 2014 already have National Identity Number (NIN) and do not need to register for it again.
Akin Alabi, a member of the House of Representatives (Ona-Ara/Egbeda Federal Constituency) also shared a similar message on Twitter. The tweet reads: “If you have NIN and can’t remember when you registered for it, it’s because when you got your BVN when it was introduced in 2014, one was assigned to you, I gathered.”
The lawmaker’s tweet follows the claim by some Nigerians that they found out they have NIN after dialing the shortcode provided for verification, *346#, but could not remember enrolling for the NIN in the past.
The Punch reported that NIMC’s spokesperson, Kayode Adegoke, said that the commission must capture Nigerians’ data first before NIN could be allocated them. Reacting specifically to the viral claim, Adegoke was quoted to have said: “The information is incorrect. We have linked our data with BVN. People need to come to our office to register. If you have not registered with NIMC, go to our centers, and register. “Truly, we have harmonized our data with some BVN data. But it is an incomplete process until you register with NIMC. if you don’t register with NIMC, efforts to generate your NIN will show a record not found. “For people not to have their lines cut off, they should disregard the message and register appropriately”.