Over 100m Nigerians can’t be properly identified – NIMC

BY PETER DURU
MAKURDI—The National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, has said that over 100 million Nigerians cannot be properly identified as citizens due to non availability of identification database in the country.

This was disclosed, yesterday, by the Director of Information Technology at NIMC, Alhaji Aliya Aziz, at a one-day public forum, in Makurdi, the Benue State capital to sensitise the people of the state on the new national identification number project.

Aziz further said over 75 per cent of the identification cards in circulation in Nigeria were fake as there were no means of authenticating their genuineness.

He said: “Over 100 million of Nigerians have no identification either by phone or any other means; and of those we can be identified, we discovered that 75 per cent of the identification cards in circulation in the country are fake because there are no means of authenticating their genuineness.”

He, however, noted that with the new identification project, Nigerians would be properly identified and documented irrespective of age, sex, religion and social status.

In his remark, Director General of NIMC, Mr Chris Oyemenam, said when fully implimented, the newidentification project would co-exist with the old National Identification Card adding: ”But after a period of time, we will phase out the former, and even direct banks not to render services to people who do not have the national identification number.”

In his speech, the Governor  Gabriel Suswam of Benue State, who was represented by his deputy, Chief Steven Lawani, urged the commission to ensure the establishment of tamper proof database for the country.