We have achieved a paradigm shift –NIMC DG

The Director General/CEO of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Chris Onyemenam said the Commission has achieved a paradigm shift with the successful implementation of the components of the National Identity Management System (NIMS) in the country.

The NIMC DG, who made the statement in an interview session with journalists at the weekend, also said the specific value proposition that flows from the NIMS cuts across the three tiers of government, as well as the private sector and includes the family, and even the international society.

According to him, if you take it by extension to the civil service generally, the concept of ghost workers or duplicate identities will be eliminated.

“No one can be in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) more than once, because the individual will be traced through the alignment of the ‘unique’ identities in the biometrics driven IPPS and the National Identification Number (NIN),” he said.

Expressing confidence in the current setup of the Unique Identification Scheme under the NIMS, he said what the Commission is doing is in tandem with global best practice, which says, “Uniquely identify every citizen and legal resident, in terms of ‘who you are’ and not what you are eligible to like benefit identities or what you can participate in like the voter’s card, or what you are obliged to like Tax, or what you need to have like the driver’s license.”

Onyemenam explained: “Therefore, the ability to create a single version of truth of the identities of individuals that will serve the entire country is what we have set up at NIMC. If you don’t know people and they commit a crime, they can deny it. If someone is able to have more than one identity then they can benefit from their own acts of deception.

He added: “Because enrolment on the NIMS platform covers the period from ‘birth to death, it provides economic planners of the country that hardcore data about some of the socio-economic characteristics of citizens in a slightly more factual sense than what other organisations provide. For example if you know the people in the age bracket 0-13 and you want to be able to feed them in schools, it’s a bit easier and more purposive with the NIMS because you will use the uniqueness of the identity that has been given to them, to ensure that the benefit goes to them only.

The same applies to scholarships, bursaries, stipends to the unemployed, etc. this is the kind of benefit that you derive from the element of non-repudiation and unique identification which make the administration of subsidies, special programs, and general economic management or economic governance in the country more targeted and development-oriented.

He also added that the previous efforts driven by the Department of National Civil Registry (DNCR), before it was taken over by the NIMC, focused on Card issuance, and the cards were issued to people aged 18 years and above as if they are the only citizens who were entitled to being identified. “That made nonsense of that scheme because it created an opportunity for politicizing the scheme and also, it didn’t measure up to global best practice of uniquely identifying every individual.” Unless and until the view that unique identification is different from the card scheme flowing from that infrastructure, the role of the Card will always be misconstrued to mean the ‘end product’ of a unique identification scheme. The card is not your identity. It is really the number, NIN that is your identity. It never changes and cannot be issued to another person, your card can get lost and be replaced but the number remains.

The NIMC DG, who will exit as the DG/CEO of the Commission this week after eight years of active service, was optimistic that by 2016, the Commission would have populated the National Identity database with the data of over 80 million Nigerians by leveraging its harmonization and integration efforts with the various MDAs. He noted that the harmonization of data with the MDAs have started in earnest as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

He added that harmonization with the BVN is over 95 percent complete and the data migrations which will enable the NIMC have a copy of the BVN data has been successfully piloted and would soon be completed.

 

JUMOKE AKIYODE