That Kaduna residency card
At this point in time when the country is struggling to restore stability following secessionist agitations and the “ultimatum” that it spawned, the last thing we need is a policy at any level that could cause controversy and further divide and alienate people. Yet this was exactly what the Kaduna State government did with the launch last week of a “residency card”. According to the state’s Commissioner for Budget and Planning Muhammad Abdullahi, with the scheme’s take-off, anyone intending to stay in Kaduna State for up to 180 days must obtain the card which would also be captured on the national data base.
He said part of the intention was to ensure adequate security, and that the registration exercise was being carried out in partnership with the National Identity Card Management Commission [NIMC] and was open to all residents of all ages.
The commissioner said very soon, people would be required to present their residency card before they could access free social services in the state, adding that 31 registration locations had already been established across three senatorial zones of the state. He said, “We need to know who resides in our state and where. This is very important not only in planning but also in ensuring security.”
NIMC’s North West Zonal Director Oyesola Taiwo said Kaduna State residency card’s registration was linked to the NIMC data base, adding that those who had their national identification number would only need to present their number to be captured. This scheme is controversial and obnoxious and has no place in Nigeria where the constitution allows any citizen to live anywhere he or she chooses to. A so-called residency card is no substitute for census figures or population estimates through random sampling in order to enable security and socio-economic planning. People who are registered today could leave the state tomorrow for other abodes and unregistered persons also enter the state every day, much as they enter and leave other states.
This country has not had a population census for twelve years but if Kaduna State Government requires updated population figures, there are better ways to get them even without a full blown census. The right agencies to partner with here are National Population Commission and National Bureau of Statistics which can help it make scientific updates of its total population, number of people in any given area, school age children, women of child-bearing age, youths, the elderly, physically challenged etc. Government does not have to know the names of people before it plans social amenities and infrastructure. Besides, it is positively dangerous to say a citizen must present a residency card before he enjoys any kind of social amenity. From “residency” it is one short step to profiling people and seeking to exclude some citizens from access to schools to health care.
The National Identity Management Commission’s [NIMC] role in this scheme is dubious. This same commission has not been able to achieve its mandate of registering and issuing National ID card to all citizens. Many people were registered years ago but they have still not been given the ID cards. It should therefore go and carry out its primary mandate instead of getting involved in this controversial scheme.
This is not the first time a state government would toy with this idea. Ondo State’s former governor Olusegun Mimiko once toyed with the idea of residency card and said only those that presented it would enjoy access to health care. Needless to say, it attracted wide condemnation. Three years ago some South Eastern states toyed with the dangerous idea of “registration” of non-indigenes resident in their states which caused a national uproar.
This scheme is an exercise in futility. It will not achieve the purposes that it is allegedly meant to achieve and would instead cause tension, division and anxiety among the people. We urge the Kaduna State Government to scrap it immediately and to seek conventional ways of updating its population statistics.