Some Nigerians, who witnessed the launching of a multi-purpose National Identity Card scheme by the federal government at the World Economic Forum on Africa event in Cape Town, South Africa few months ago, might have thought it was another drainpipe like the previous scheme. Our reporter visited theNational Identity Management Commission yesterday and reports that the scheme appears to be working. Getting to the office of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) did not prove a difficult task as it is located on the third floor of the Industrial Training Fund building at Wuse II, Abuja. By 8 am, the lobby of NIMC was crowded by about 40 applicants wishing to get the National Identity Card. The applicants sat on seats arranged by the commission’s officials and their number increased as the minutes went by. Security personnel of the commission stood in groups monitoring the movements of the applicants with keen eyes. The applicants were then directed to join the queue and one of the commission’s officials told them that they must have something to identify themselves like a driver’s license or an old national identity card, amongst others. The official explained to them that double registration of the National Identity card process is illegal and told each applicant to display his or her means of identification for proper scrutiny. After the identification process, some of the applicants were ushered into a room and issued a three-page form to fill. The form process, which was the first stage of the exercise, required some of the applicant’s personal and family data, including name, state of origin, address, native language, religion and height. The filling of the form was monitored by some of the commission’s officials, who asked questions and cross-checked every filled form to ensure that every portion was filled as required. One of the officials even took it upon herself to personally fill the form of an applicant, who supplied the relevant information. After the form filling process, the applicants were taken to the lobby, where their heights were measured and the information quickly filled by the official in charge of the measuring scale. Those measured were given numbers and returned to the same room. The numbers were used to assembly those measured for the final stage of the registration process, which was to take their pictures in a place called ‘the capturing room’. The room which was large had about 30 capturing devices attached to a computer monitor. Each applicant faced the monitor and was made to place his/her fingers on a fingerprint scanner to record finger prints. The applicants’ photographs were also taken. The officials afterwards transferred information gathered from each applicant’s form into the computer and they observed and were asked to confirm the details on the computer screen in case of mistakes. Once certified by the applicant, the data on the screen are saved and the registration declared complete. After the completion of the exercise, a slip carrying the details fed into the computer system is printed within a few minutes and given to each applicant, who are told to expect a telephone call from the commission very soon for the collection of their National Identity cards. Some applicants who spoke to Weekly Trust expressed mixed feelings about the whole process. A man who praised the orderliness, with which the registration was carried out, was however pessimistic about the accessibility of NIMC activities to rural dwellers: “How can someone from the village come to a place like this for identity card registration,” he lamented. He said if the commission has offices in local government areas, people staying in remote villages wouldn’t have access to such places. Another applicant who thought the exercise has financial commitment, said his mind was totally disabused by the end of the exercise as he paid nothing. When Weekly Trust spoke with the FCT State Coordinator of NIMC, Mr. Owolabi Fatai Usman in his office, he revealed that the registration process has been open since September 5, 2012. He said serious plans are in motion to ensure a thorough and successful execution of the commission’s operations. “Very soon we shall roll out to all the 774 local governments in the country and we are going to go to the reverine areas as well as all other places that may appear as loop holes,” he said. The coordinator highlighted on NIMC’s grand plans and promised to divulge all information at the appropriate time. On the website of NIMC and particularly the first few lines of the home page, the following were deduced: “The National Identity Management Commission was established by Act No. 23 of 2007, primarily to foster the orderly development of an identity sector in Nigeria through the development of a modern and universally acceptable identity management infrastructure”. Can the people of Nigeria finally breathe a sigh of relief and boldly say the promises of that Act have been fulfilled? Definitely, time and events alone would lend a hand to this looming question. weeklytrust.ng/index.php/new-news/13252-what-it-takes-to-get-national-identity-card
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 14:50:19 +0000
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