Director
General, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Barrister Chris
Onyemenam has called on the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON)
to support, partner and cooperate with NIMC to enable the Commission establish
enrolment centres in the 774 local governments in the country for effective
grassroots National Identification Number (NIN) registration exercise.
Barr.
Onyemenam, who was speaking at the Pre-Summit meeting of first Local Government
Areas (LGAs) Summit on the National Identity Management System (NIMS) held with
ALGON members in Abuja, told DigitalSENSE
Business News that NIMC was in a hurry to set-up enrolment centres and
commence local government NIN registration quickly, hence the need for this
collaboration.
He
noted that NIMC was established by Act No. 23 of 2007 to foster on orderly development
of an identity sector and build a modern identity management system for
Nigeria.
“We
do four important things, the first has to do with the creation of National
Identity Management Database, Manage Identity Authentication and Verification
Service Infrastructure, Establish Registration Centres in every state capital
and with your cooperation and support in every local government area, and then
we can begin to talk of issuing National Identity Card” he said.
As
said by him, if Nigeria is unable to build a database founded on a system that
could enable any point in time to update records, we would not have a national
identity management system. If we have no way of telling the identity of an
individual and affirming that identity, we will not be able to collect
government revenues properly both at Federal, State and local government levels
and we be unable to fight crime and criminal activities especially those that
are related with identity of an individual”.
While
welcoming and appreciating the ALGON members, mostly Chairmen of Local
Government Councils and other executives for honouring the commission’s
invitation the DG noted that the essence of the meeting was to introduce them
to the journey of carrying out massive local government NIN enrolment that NIMC
believes its success lie on the effective and efficient collaboration and
cooperation between ALGON and NIMC in order to deliver on the mandate.
In
his remark, National Chairman of ALGON, Chief Nwabueze Okafor called on members
to recall the long journey of Nigeria in implementing the National Identity
Project and see it as the project that must be completed, stressing that NIMC
under the new management has demonstrated good handling competencies by
deploying modern technology systems in line with international standard that
have enough capacity to meet the yeaning and aspiration of the Federal
Government and people of Nigeria.
Chief
Nwabueze, who spoke through the Local Government Area Summit Consultant and
ALGON executive, Mr. Felix Imoisili, said that the summit has been grouped into
three zones with locations in Abuja to cover North-East, North-Central and
North-West; Lagos location to cover south-West and the last will hold in Asaba
to cover South-South and South-East.
The arrangement will cover all zones and
eliminate challenges that will come up if 774 local government chairmen should
gather in one hall for such a meeting. He
said that NIMC was wise in taking this step, knowing fully-well the great
success that will be recorded in using ALGON to reach grassroots for the NIN
registration.
In
the same vein all ALGON members present promised to support and assist NIMC in
the implementation of the NIMS Projects in their various states and Local
Government Areas.
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Pix: Barrister Chris Onyemenam, DG, NIMC
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