Kidnappers Beat NIN Tracking by Using Victims’ Phones – NIMC Boss

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has explained why Nigeria’s National Identification Number (NIN) system cannot always be used to track kidnappers and terrorists, saying criminals deliberately exploit loopholes by using the mobile phones and SIM cards of their victims.

Director-General of NIMC, Mrs. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, disclosed this during an appearance on Sunday Politics on Channels Television, where she addressed concerns over the effectiveness of the NIN in combating rising insecurity across the country.

She said although the NIN remains the cornerstone of Nigeria’s digital identity and security architecture, criminal gangs have devised methods that make them difficult to trace through the system.

“We already know the NIN is the foundational identity for the security architecture, but 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.

Coker-Odusote also revealed that security agencies have examined the possibility that some kidnappers operating in the country may be foreign nationals brought into Nigeria shortly before carrying out attacks.

“There is a theory that these kidnappers may not be 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. Those are some of the scenarios we have,” she stated.

She stressed that while the NIN provides a robust identity verification platform, it is not a surveillance system capable of independently tracking criminals.

According to her, effective intelligence gathering and criminal investigations require coordinated efforts involving security agencies, telecommunications operators and other relevant institutions.

The Federal Government has made the NIN a key component of its national security strategy by mandating the linkage of all SIM cards to the unique identity number, a policy aimed at strengthening identity verification, supporting criminal investigations and curbing crime.

The 11-digit National Identification Number, issued by NIMC under the National Identity Management Commission Act, 2007, has become Nigeria’s primary digital identity credential. It is now required for access to a wide range of government and financial services, including passport applications, driver’s licence processing, bank account opening and several social intervention programmes.

Despite its strategic importance, Coker-Odusote maintained that the NIN is fundamentally an identity management system and that the responsibility for tracking and apprehending criminals rests with law enforcement agencies using intelligence, telecommunications data and other investigative tools.