Authenticate National ID For 2019 Elections –FG

The Federal Government has  charged the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure that the National Identification Number is used to authenticate eligible voters in the nearest future.
Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, gave the charge at the Policy Roundtable Meeting on Identity Management, organised by NIMC in collaboration with the World Bank at the State House Conference Center, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
This was even as NIMC Director General, Aliyu Aziz, disclosed that if the commission gets the N5 billion needed to harmonise data from collecting agencies, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Bank Verification Number (BVN) as well as Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), it would meet the President's directives in 24 months.
 But, Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Mohammed Babandede, has described as punishment, the multiple identification process, in the country but added that without budget to do harmonisation of data, several workshops being organised would be in vain.
Nigeria has multiple identity management system with commercial banks issuing the Bank Verification Number (BVN), SIM card registration by NCC, Voters registration by INEC, school registration done at various Local Government Areas (LGAs), birth registration by National Population Commission (NPC), International Passport by Nigeria Immigration Service and Drivers License jointly issued by the Vehicles Inspection Officers (VIO) and Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).
According to Osinbajo, who was represented by the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCOS) to the President, Ade Ipaye, government could no longer maintain the cost duplications of biometrics collection  in the face of scare resources.
“The fiscal cost of implementing disparate and unconnected biometrics linked data bases is increasingly becoming a huge burden and needs to be streamlined going forward, as government cannot continue to fund the unnecessary duplication of efforts and overlapping identity functions that further deplete its scarce resources.
“Clearly, there are potentially large benefits from integration of the ID programmes of our government institutions. And we must take this advantage to get it right once and for all.
“As we endeavour to resolve the identity management system challenges, we will also ensure that other forms of identification such as driver's license, international passports and so on are aligned and in sinc.
“The President has already taken the initiative in recognising the importance of identity and a harmonized system. That is why there was a directive from my office in December of 2015, for all stakeholders to have built independent identity management systems.
“Stakeholders could have built independent identity management system to consolidate, aggregate and  integrate their data bases as a way to accelerate and scale up the national identity system so as to offer every Nigerian a unique identifier.
“I am aware that a lot of work has been done in this regard by all the stakeholders ‎represented here. However, it is His Excellency, the President's charge that the national identification number is used to authenticate eligible voters in the nearest future as well as in the areas of access to health, insurance, registration of SIM cards, access to the social welfare programmes of this administration and for all financial transactions.
“The development of identity programmes in Nigeria will greatly help the nation leverage on its potentials to improve security of lives and properties, advance service delivery and fight poverty and corruption. Achieving full-scale national identity management will therefore, boost our efforts at better tracking the movement of people while minimizing issues with external border controls and terrorism,” Osinbajo said.
The Country Director Nigeria, of World Bank,  Rachid Benmessaoud, represented by Indira Konjhodzic, said the collaboration was ‎ in recognition of the importance of identity management as one of the platforms for development.
According to him, ‎about 1.5 billion people (most of whom were internally displaced, refugees, entrepreneurs, etc) worldwide were with no formal proof of identity at the moment,  and this, he said, was a challenge for them to get loan or participate in democratic and political development.
While describing Nigeria as a power house in Africa, whose action would attract the interest of her neighbours and countries on continent, ‎Benmessaoud said the ID management would help the social safety net system of government and ‎enable them reach the poor and the marginalised.
He added that identity management would also bridge the gap of close to 50 per cent Nigerians that are not banked.
Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, on his part, regretted that Nigeria had not gone too far with regards to population, exposure and level of civilization.
The Minister, who said one year after, he was yet to collect his national ID, urged NIMC to set a timeline to harmonise identity management in the country, and must be in the vanguard of pushing for legislation for ID management in the country.
He also said the government must enforce compliance by citizens by tying participation in certain social benefits to getting the national ID.
Federal Inland Revenue Service,(FIRS) Chairman, Babatunde Fowler, in his remarks, said harmonisation of identity management would capture about 40 million Nigerian workers not registered as tax payers, and would generate more funds for the government, especially as the country is in recession.