Aliyu Aziz Abubakar, director-general/chief executive officer (DG/CEO) of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC),has disclosed that the Commission has so far registered and issued over 88 million National Identification Number(NIN) to Nigerians
Abubakar, who stated this through NIMC’s Head, Finance and Investment, Akinola Abolaji who led a delegation of the Commission to the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Lekan Balogun, Alli Okunmade II on a courtesy visit to the monarch on the forthcoming 2022 ID Day, said: “So far, NIMC has registered and issued over 88 million NIN to Nigerian Citizens and other legal residents.”
He also told the monarch that the visit was to be in commemoration of 2022 ID Day with the theme, ‘Traditional Institutions, Critical Stakeholders for Citizen Mobilisation.’
Elaborating on the identity day (2022 ID Day), the DG/CEO said: “The Identity Day (ID Day) Campaign is the ongoing call for government authorities in all countries around the world to officially recognise 16 September as Identity Day. The choice of the date was with reference to sustainable development goals that calls for legal identity for all, including birth registration by 2030.
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“The ID-Day campaign was initiated by ID4Africa at the 4th Annual Meeting of the ID4Africa Movement on 24 April 2018, in Abuja, Nigeria. The initiative was met with strong support whereby over 1500 individual signatures across the globe endorsed the proposition. The Federal Government approved the recognition of the date in 2020 as National Identity Day in Nigeria, otherwise called ID-Day, to raise awareness about the role identity plays in empowering individuals to exercise their right and responsibility fairly and equitable in a modern society.”
He used the occasion to authenticate the activities of some private individuals’ involvement in the registration for NIN, saying that it was in order to increase the number of enrolment and to ensure that all Nigerians are captured into the NIDB that the Commission issued license to private partners (Front End Partners FEPs) who are saddled with responsibility of enrolling the Nigerian Citizens with a token funded by Federal Government.
The licensed partners, according to him “are representatives of NIMC and their license allows them to provide Front End Services and not allowed to do any modification on the existing data, more emphasis has been placed on the issuing of NIN, as we are moving towards digitisation of the economy.”
He added that “the Commission was recently transferred to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.”
According to him, “We all agreed that Nigeria needs effective identity management system more than ever before in order to curb the menace of security challenges in the country and identity problem being faced daily by Nigerians living in Diaspora. It is imperative and important at this stage of the growth of our NIDB and recognition of ID-Day to move to the grassroots for the enrolment of individuals where the Traditional Institution has a key role to play in citizen mobilisation for NIN issuance.”
The feat recorded by the Commission received an applause from the Olubadan, who urged the Federal Government not to look back in its determination to ensure that Nigeria ranks well among the comity of nations with accurate database across the globe.
Oba Balogun, during the courtesy visit to his Alarere residence, said the Commission had proven its ability and capability as far as its core mandates are concerned and deserves all the necessary encouragements so as to do more, noting that “we still have a long way to go, looking at our over 200 million population.”
In a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan by the Personal Assistant (Media) to the Olubadan, Oladele Ogunsola, Oba Balogun described the activities of the NIMC as very crucial and strategic to the growth, progress and development of the country, stressing that the country might not have been so overwhelmed by the current challenges of insecurity if the country had gotten an up-to-date database.
While acknowledging the role of the traditional institutions in the mobilisation of the citizens for every masses-oriented programme of the government, Oba Balogun charged the NIMC team to ensure that the expected awareness, especially at the grassroots is created in order to make the mobilisation seamless.
