Charity must begin at home

Ordinarily, it would have arrived as a most salutary piece of information, signalling a government agency hard at work. But alas, it has left many in sheer bewilderment.

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) recently announced that it has extended its service of capturing the identity of Nigerian citizens into its database to two foreign countries – United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United Kingdom (UK). According to Aliyu Aziz, Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, “The extension is in line with the NIMC’s mandate to ensure that all Nigerian citizens in Nigeria and the diaspora and legal residents in Nigeria are enrolled into the National Identity Database and issued with the unique National Identification Number (NIN) to applicants upon successful enrolment.”

The exercise, which would involve the demographic and biographic data capture of all Nigerian citizens residing in activated countries is in line with the Federal Government’s directive to make the possession of NIN a mandatory requirement for elections, banking transactions, acquisition and renewal of international passport, driver’s licence and ECOWAS travel document, to mention a few.

Some Nigerian companies are said to have been licensed to work with partners across Africa, Europe, Asia and America for the purposes of diaspora registration and identity capture. Additional locations are to be rolled out by the NIMC across the world and announced from time to time.

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As already noted, NIMC’s foray into foreign lands in search of Nigerian citizens is most laudable had the national identity card scheme not been mired in controversy and crippling inefficiency right from inception. The need to create a wholesale national identity card started in 1977 but several initiatives were defeated by graft, ineptitude and a lack of will by various governments. A most notable effort was made in 2003 when the directorate of National Civic Registration (DNCR) was created.

Over 50 million Nigerians were registered in the scheme but at the end of the day, it was again mired in corruption and the card issued was a worthless piece of plastic which didn’t serve even the primary purposes of identification and prevention of identity fraud.

It was not until 2010 when the NIMC was established that Nigeria switched to the computerised national identity card scheme. There is NIN for citizens, which is part of the national identity management system, and there is the General Multi-Purpose Card (GMPC). Every individual’s number carries his or her unique database which is borne in the identity card.

Apart from the NIN, the new national identity card contains two photographs of the cardholder and a chip containing the biometric information of the card holder. The current card also has the features of a prepaid card which means it can be used as an ATM card.

Though there is remarkable improvement in the current attempt to create an identification scheme for Nigerians, the execution has been wonky, to say the least. After about five years, just about 30 percent of Nigerians have been captured in the registration process which is roughly about 30 million people. But of this number, hardly about 10 million may have been issued the card. Many have been captured for a couple of years and issued the NIN on a piece of paper, yet they have no cards. For a country the size of Nigeria, there were just about 2,000 registration centres in Nigeria as at 2018.

It is in the light of this awkward and lethargic manner of delivering the identity card scheme in Nigeria that people turn up their noses to the foray abroad by the NIMC. What is the hurry or overarching benefits even, rushing to capture Nigerians abroad while the process has been haphazard and inchoate at home?

We dare say that the diaspora populace is a different kettle of fish entirely that must be handled with utmost caution. And we say: sort the home front out first