How National Identification Management System will stimulate development

How National Identification Management System will stimulate development

The history of national identity registration in Nigeria is long and tortuous just as it has been wasteful.

The Federal Government had in 2001 awarded a contract worth $214m to a consortium led by French firm, Sagem, for the production of identity cards for all Nigerian citizens.

The contract was marred in 2003 by allegations that Nigerian officials collected more than $2m bribes to influence the award of the contract.

On May 11, 2005 Snecma and Sagem SA merged to become the Safran Group, a defence and communications conglomerate.

The case involving several government and party officials was never resolved while only a few Nigerians received identity cards under the scheme.

However, the National Identity Management Commission established by the NIMC Act of 2007 has taken over the functions, assets and liabilities of the Department of the National Civil Registration, which handled the identity card contract.

DNCR was established by the Decree 51 of 1979 when Olusegun Obasanjo, was the Head of State.

Incidentally, Obasanjo also signed the NIMC Act of 2007 that abrogated the civic registration organisation.

During the 25-year life span of DNCR, it achieved little but got enmeshed in several controversies that saw to wastage of billions of tax payers’ money.

Now, NIMC is charged with the responsibilities of registering every individual in Nigeria, establishing and maintaining a national identity database as well as issuing of a unique identification number and a General Multi-purpose Identity Card.

The NIMC Act 2007 prescribes that any person who accesses data or any other information from the National Identity Database without lawful authorisation risks a minimum jail term of 10 years.

Similarly, any person who refuses to provide relevant information or gives false information to the NIMC also risks a minimum jail term of 10 years.

Where these offences are committed by a corporate body, the organisation is liable to a fine of N10m while the officials of the organisation involved in the offence are liable to a 10-year jail term.

The Act established the National Identity Database, which would contain registered information or data of citizens of Nigeria and non-Nigerian citizens registerable under the law.

According to the Act, “Any person in respect of whom an entry is made in the database shall be identified using unique and unambiguous features such as fingerprints and other biometric information.”

Among other things, the objective of the database is to enable NIMC to use information contained in the database to issue Multipurpose Identity Card with unique Identification Number to registerable persons.

From the specification of the Act, it is compulsory to present the identification number for several transactions including application for and issuance of a passport, opening of individual and personal bank accounts and purchase of insurance policies.

It is also required for the purchase, transfer and registration of land; contributory pension scheme; consumer credit transactions; registration of voters; payment of taxes and in the consumption of other services rendered by the government.

Any person who carries out or permits the carrying out of any of these transactions without the identification number commits an offence that attracts a fine of N50, 000 or jail term of not less than six months.

If a corporate body commits the offence, it is liable to a fine of N1m while the Chief Executive Officer of the organisation or the line manager that caused the offence to be committed would also pay a personal fine of N1m.

On the time frame for the operation of the new law, the Act said, “The commission may by order approved by the Attorney-General of the Federation and published in the gazette, modify the information for the time being set out in the Second Schedule of this Act.

“Every registerable person who, at the commencement of this Act has attained the age of 16 years, shall within 60 days thereof or such longer period as the commission may by order specify, attend before the commission or at such place designated by the commission, for the purpose of being registered.” 

In pursuit of this mandate, NIMC had in July 2010 signed agreements for a new identity management project with two private consortia.

The two consortia – Chams consortium (made up of Chams Plc and Nextzon Communications) and One SecureCard consortium – are tasked with the responsibility of handling the front end operations of the project including data capturing.

At the signing ceremony in Abuja, Chairman of NIMC and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Uche Secondus, said it had taken three years for the agreement to be reached.

He said the signing ceremony was the beginning of the process to deliver a NID of 100 million enrolments over the next 30 months from the date the registration starts at model registration centres to be established across Nigeria by the private sector partners.

Secondus had said, “This giant step is a necessary commitment that signifies Federal Government’s resolve to partner with the private sector to deliver important social infrastructure that would enable government to deliver on its important responsibilities – securing lives and property, access to consumer credit and a host of other services that will touch the lives of the poor amongst us and improve our image as a nation.

“I hope the private sector partners have thought through this to avoid any further delays. This is because the interest of the Nigerian citizenry is paramount and the board will do anything within its powers to safeguard that.”

Secondus added that in putting the agreement in place, the government had learnt from mistakes of the past, and was set to ensure the sustainability of the project.

He noted that the tasks ahead would be more challenging in the areas of sourcing for funds to finance the roll-out plans, and instituting necessary security controls and protocols as well as ensuring necessary technology transfer.

The Group Managing Director of Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo, said the private sector firms involved in the roll out process understood the challenges before them.

According to him, for a country with the size of Nigeria not to have a robust and viable National Identity Management System is scandalous.

At a recent stakeholder’s workshop, NIMC Director-General, Mr. Chris Onyemenam, said the agency was set to break with the past and give the nation a proper means of identification through the implementation of a National Identity Management System.

According to him, NIMC will enable about 80 per cent of Nigerians that lacked proper identification to be enrolled and reliably identified.

He noted that the identity management sector was critical to Nigerian’s development and the implementations of the President’s transformation agenda.  

Onyemenam explained that the system comprised a NID (also known as a Central Identity Repository or register; a chip-based General Multi-Purpose Card; and a network of platforms to irrefutably prove or assert the identity of an individual.

The fourth component is the harmonisation of all existing identity databases in the public sector. This fourth component includes integrating disparate databases such as the voters’ register, SIM card register, driving licence data and population data.

The NIMC Act 2007 empowers the commission to establish, maintain and operate an NID. In pursuit of this, it is expected to establish centralised, reliable and dependable national database.

The NIMC boss stressed that the most important aspect of the system was that it would provide a universal identification infrastructure for the entire country.

This, he said, would help bring real and recognisable benefits to the government, the entire citizenry, and all legal residents in Nigeria.

He said that in order to harmonise with all the existing databases in the public sector, the NIMC had concluded fibre optic connectivity to 14 agencies that engaged in biometric identity related activities in the country.

According to him, NIMC had perfected strategies to ensure the successful execution of the NIMS project.

He said that NIMC had begun a pilot scheme, which was being implemented in Bauchi, Bayelsa, Enugu, Kaduna and Lagos states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory, adding that National Identification Number was currently being issued in the pilot states.

Onyemenam said with the successful implementation of the pilot scheme, the commission was ready to expand its coverage to the 36 states of the federation with the setting up of enrolment offices by the end of this year, adding that the project would successfully take off by the first quarter of 2013.

Speaking on the importance of the identity scheme, Professor of Sociology and Head, Sociology Department, University of Lagos, Dr. Adebayo Ninalowo, said it was imperative to readily ascertain and establish claims to Nigerian citizenship, for the state to fulfill its obligations to the citizens.

Driven by this sense of need and urgency, stakeholders say it is necessary for NIMC to make a clean break with the ugly past.