Story Time: My NIN Office Nightmare

Let me tell you, life in Nigeria is not easy. Rich or poor, we all face the same chaos. Traffic jams, network failures, and sitting in your best Gucci (or Cuggi) outfit on rickety wooden benches at the NIN office are just a few of the joys we endure.

Yesterday, I embarked on an epic and maddening quest to the Eti-Osa Local Government’s NIN Office. Why, you ask? My international passport is expiring soon, and I discovered a problem – the names on my passport and NIN didn’t match. My NIN was missing my middle name. According to the official passport website, I had to fix this before I could renew my passport. Little did I know, I was about to descend into a bureaucratic hell.

I scoured the internet for the necessary documents but found nothing. It’s like this country thrives on making us suffer for every little thing, sigh. Finally, I stumbled upon a Nairaland forum post (yes, Nairaland!) that said I needed a court affidavit. Court affidavit? What’s that? I told my mom, who made a few calls and discovered we had to go to the NIN office. Nothing gets done in Nigeria without connections, o.

We headed to the NIN office around 9 am and arrived by 9:30. There were already 11 people ahead of us. My mom ventured inside the tiny office while I waited outside with a file of documents, clueless about what they’d ask for. When she returned, we had to first pay 600 Naira on some mysterious website, which emailed us a document to fill out. Then, we had to pay again to print the document. I also had to pay for a passport photograph. My mom found a man who handled court affidavits. On a literal piece of paper, he asked for my old name, new name, and address. After an hour, he returned with the affidavit, and I signed it and stapled everything together.

Back in the main building, the small space was now packed with over 50 people. All the chairs, plastic and makeshift, were taken. We filled out and submitted the document. The woman in charge told us to wait for my name to be called. An hour passed, and no names had been called. Frustrated, my mom and I went home for food, battling traffic the whole way. We returned around 2 pm, and still, no names had been called. I needed to do my “capture” (take a picture and provide biometrics). Apparently, they stopped captures at 2 pm to hand out NIN papers. Division of labor is rocket science here, and they love stressing people. I waited for three hours before they finally saw me.

During that time, a woman next to me was venting. She was opening a business in two weeks, but her NIN showed no record found, her phone was disconnected from her NIN, and no one could reach her. She came to the office only to be told to call customer service. Why would she call customer service from the main office? She’d been trying for two days, and the number didn’t go through. There are only three NIN customer service lines in the whole country. I felt bad for her, because she must have been working so hard, only for something so trivial to threaten the success of it all.

My mom, growing impatient, told me to join a line forming in front of the door. I stood there for 15 minutes, tired of all this waiting. Then the guy behind me started saying “Hi” like 4 times in a small voice. I ignored him mostly until he tapped my arm and stood beside me, phone in hand. I was just thinking, “why is he talking to me”, I was already annoyed and he was not helping. He said, “Can you read….” I look at his phone and see a message typed out. My first thought was maybe someone sent him a message and he does not have his glasses or something like that, so I read it out loud:

“Hi

Can I have you number, I wanted to get to know you and be your frie…” My voice trailed off and I said, “Sorry, I’m not interested,” firmly. He persisted, “No, I just want to be your friend…” “No, I’m not interested,” I repeated curtly.

I don’t know why some men like deceiving women that they just want to be friends. Not that if he asked me out, I would have said yes. I just like to at least see some honesty instead of always being on edge about them having ulterior motive. That whole interaction just made my mood worse. Like, shoot your shot I guess but not when you see the person your talking to is obviously annoyed. I did not want to stay on the line anymore so I went to sit next to my mum.

At 5 o’clock, they finally called my name. The woman was just rude. She asked for my NIN number, which I didn’t have because she didn’t tell me what documents to bring. When I asked for a moment to get my file from my mom, she snapped, “You’re not prepared, stop wasting my time. I should not even be here, I should be in my house,” and rolled her eyes. Is it my fault she’s was taking her sweet time during the day now she has to work overtime? Sucks, but not my fault. I ignored her, got my NIN, and handed it over. She asked when I last did my NIN. I guessed two years ago. She rolled her eyes again and asked my age. “17,” I said. She checked her computer and attempted to scolded me, “You were 15 when you first did your NIN. If I didn’t check, you’d have given me wrong information.” I was confused and stayed silent, not wanting to provoke her because I know if I even annoy her small, she can send me out or ruin my NIN, because these people can be so petty. The process of signatures and fingerprints took three minutes, which made me wonder why I waited 7 hours to do something that lasted 3 minutes. She handed me a piece of paper and told me to come back tomorrow.

I didn’t want to return. The whole ordeal had taken seven hours off my day and 7 years off my life-span. My mom lectured me about the importance of matching my name on documents during the car ride home, but I zoned out.

That’s my NIN office experience. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I hated experiencing it. If you’ve had a similar story, feel free to rant in the comments!

XOXO,

Nadine R.