The Federal Government has applied to the World Bank Group for another 12-month extension of Nigeria’s $430 million Digital Identification for Development Project as about $196m of the facility remained unutilized for the National Identification Number (NIN) issuance to millions of Nigerians thus far.
The World Bank Group, in its restructuring paper dated 22 October, 2026, indicated that the Nigerian government made the request on May 8, 2026 to extend the project’s closing date from 31 December, 2026, to 31 December, 2027
The Bretton Woods development finance institution stated: “The proposed Level 2 restructuring seeks to extend the project closing date by 12 months, as requested by the Government on May 8, 2026.
““This would be the third closing date extension under this project since Board Approval in February 2020, for the cumulative period of 42 months (3.5 years)”, the bank added.
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According to the implementation timeline of the digital identity project, the schedule is to close it in June 2024 but the Federal Government requested initially for a six-month extension of the project, which was granted by the World Bank Group, after which it was granted another two-year extension.
The World Bank Group’s available data on the facility’s disbursement indicated that about $234m, inclusive of co-financiers, or 54.4 per cent of the total sum, had been disbursed by the government for the project.
The Washington D.C-based development finance institution disclosed that the financing comprised $115m from its International Development Association, $100m equivalent from the French Development Agency and $215m equivalent from the European Investment Bank.
The bank noted that as of September 14 this year, over 140 million enrolments had been recorded but only 121 million enrollees had completed biometric and demographic validation and duplicate checks.
A further analysis of the World Bank Group’s restructuring paper reflected that targets set for women and children were not met
Specifically, the bank reported that as of the end of June, 40.4 million women and girls had NINs compared with the 79 million target, while 26.3 million children under 16 had NINs as against the 60.83 million targeted by the government.
The bank listed unpaid enrolment partners as another constraint to the project’s implementation, stressing that the billing system must produce audited payment reports to enable payments to partners which have not been paid since January 2026.
Other priorities the World Bank Group identified as crucial to meeting the NIN registration target by the Federal Government were deploying 7,000 procured mobile devices by January 2027, training agents, expanding ward-level enrolment nationwide and beginning school enrolment by December 2026.
Noting that the ward campaign has generated 10 million NINs since March, the bank reported that a major reason for the extension was the delayed replacement of NIMC’s existing technology with the National Identity Management System 2.0.
It would be recalled that the digital identity project was approved in February 2020 and effective from December 2021 when the implementation commenced the project was designed to expand access to identification and services for millions of digitally unconnected Nigerians through a secure, inclusive national identity system.
Available data from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) showed that as of September 30, 2026 about 121 million Nigerians had obtained their NINs as against the 180 million targeted, leaving a gap of 59 million citizens uncaptured in the national identity database.
