What you should know about NINCard, the fake NIN enrollment portal

The National Identification Management Commission (NIMC) has distanced itself from a circulating NIN enrollment and modification platform referred to as NINcard. This comes amid the recent technical glitch on the commission’s official portal. 

In a Wednesday X post, NIMC noted in the disclaimer that the portal, with the web address NINcard.com, doesn’t originate from the commission and tagged it as fake. The fraudulent website joins a list of other platforms orchestrated by cybercriminals to defraud innocent Nigerians.

“NINcard.com is not in any way affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!” the commission said. 

The scenario further highlights the extent to which fraudsters are willing to go in luring and defrauding innocent Nigerians. In essence, the rise of fake government agency websites is becoming a pandemic, with recent examples of NELFUND, UN, IMF and so on. 

Structure of the fake NIN portal

As fake websites often mimic legitimate ones, using similar logos, layouts, and even domain names, but with malicious intent, the fake NIMC portal appears to stand out, despite maintaining the green and white design. 

A look at the website shows that it portrays itself as a National Identification Number platform where Nigerians, both at home and abroad, can upgrade to a durable plastic NIN ID card, get a digital/soft copy, modify, verify, reactivate, validate, or retrieve their lost identification numbers. To further lure Nigerians, it has a session containing nicely crafted, mapped-out reviews. 

The payment session shows the service cost N59,926 with logos of payment platforms such as Flutterwave, Verve and MasterCard. In addition, the platform is present across major social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and YouTube. According to its X page, the platform seems to have been in existence since September 2023, and its most recent post is dated April 29 2025. 

Importantly, Nigerians are to beware of platforms different from the NIMC official portals, such as:

• Main portal: nimc.gov.ng
• Modification portal: selfservicemodification.nimc.gov.ng
• NINAuth: ninauth.nimc.gov.ng

Also Read: SIM swap service resumes as telcos migrates to NINAuth portal.

Warning to NIMC 

With no credit to the brains behind fake websites, the development represents a call to order for the NIMC.

Over the past months, Nigerians have been experiencing difficulties accessing the NIMC’s portal due to several technical glitches and corresponding maintenance on the portal. Even at periodic announcements of the portal’s reinstatement, Nigerians continue to face widespread service disruptions, sparking frustration and public outcry.

For instance, following weeks of portal downtime, the NIMC announced on July 1 that a system upgrade would be conducted on the portal from July 1 to July 2. The commission stated that the exercise was part of a broader strategy aimed at enhancing service delivery and improving the customer experience.

However, contrary to its assurances, many Nigerians reported that key services remain either unavailable or unreliable. Issues with NIN self-service modifications and verification processes continue to plague sectors including banking, education, and migration.

An X user, who tweeted on July 12, said: 

“It’s really frustrating to have to pass through a whole lot of stress with no headway. My NIN hasn’t been successfully validated after a series of attempts, multiple emails for help and the likes but no response. Dear NIMC, can you kindly help as quickly as possible.”

While Nigerians continue to voice their dissatisfaction over the portal’s epileptic operation, NIMC keeps reassuring that the platform is working perfectly, regarding its verification and authentication platforms. 

Amid this, there are still widespread user complaints about the NIN mobile application’s instability and failure to process requests. 

Another X user, who tweeted on July 23, said:

“Leave that one first, how long will your service be down, stop being incompetent, you’re lucky this is Nigeria where everything goes close to a month nothing. The whole Nigeria has to pause cos of u.”

In addition, Nigerians are still unable to access SIM-related services such as SIM activation, replacement and authentication owing to a technical transition on the NIMC portal. Although SIM swaps have been made available, purchasing a new SIM card is still unavailable for Nigerians, making essential services unavailable for millions of Nigerian telecoms subscribers.

Considering the fact that the digital identity system has become a unified tool to access services in Nigeria, the portal’s status raises questions about the commission’s readiness to meet these responsibilities. 

The fake enrollment and modification website is simply a warning to NIMC to find a lasting solution to its portal malfunctioning and make its maintenance process as swift as possible.