- Many more Nigerians should be drafted into the database
For a project that started over 30 years ago, the news that the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has record of only about 30 million Nigerians so far is, to say the least, disappointing. Without necessarily putting the blame on the current handlers of the National Identity Card project, the point must be made that the scheme, though well intentioned, has suffered too many setbacks, which should not be in any county that is serious about knowing the number of people it has to cater to their needs.
Indeed, there has been significant progress since the new management took over in 2015 when there were about seven million in its database. This was doubled in 2016 to 14 million. This was again doubled to 28 million last year. At present, the number captured is in the region of 30.2 million aside the three million others being processed. The projection for this year is to enroll about 15 million persons.
Perhaps the good news is that the commission has realised one of the shortcomings of the system and has therefore decided to make amends. One of the challenges militating against the progress of the commission is inadequate enrolment centres. Its director-general, Aliyu Aziz, who disclosed this at a news conference in Abuja, to announce the collaboration between the NIMC and National Orientation Agency (NOA) on sensitisation of the public on the National Identity Management System (NIMS) said: “Currently, we have about 900 enrollment centres all over the country. But it is inadequate for a populous country like Nigeria. The standard is to have a centre for every 50,000 people. Therefore, for our 200 million population, we need more than 4,000 centres. Population commission has more than 4,000 centres; so we will utilise that. Immigration has a lot of centres, road safety has and then the state governments also.”
We hope the commission would leverage the facilities of other government agencies that Aziz has identified because that is one of the ways to fast track the NIMC’s job without necessarily incurring more cost.
The commission also has to find ways to continue its enlightenment of the public to disabuse their minds that the purpose of the enrollment is for taxation. There are more important uses to which a data base can be put beyond taxation. For instance, meaningful development in the absence of a reliable data base is impossible. Governments the world over place a lot of emphasis on having a realistic data base to enable them know the number of mouths to feed, the number of schools to build, the number of hospitals, roads and other infrastructure to have to meet the needs of the people. And the only way they can get these figures is by having a database of the people in the country. Perhaps our wobbled development is part of the fallout of the absence of a dependable data base.
Unfortunately, successive governments in the country have been treating the matter of identity cards with levity even though so much money has been sunk into this simple project of getting identity cards for Nigerians. As with other government projects, the national identity card project has become a money guzzler and another cesspit of corruption. At least one minister of internal affairs, Sunday Afolabi, and other public officials were arraigned in connection with a $214m contract to produce the identity cards. Afolabi died about six months after his arraignment before judgment could be delivered in the matter.
Now is the time for the Federal Government to pay more attention to this important issue. So many people are trooping into the country from everywhere, and we have no proof to say they are not Nigerians. Such people constitute security risks to the country. There are many advantages in Nigerians carrying their country’s identity cards. We cannot continue to grope in the dark.
