Prospects, challenges of identity card project
Recently, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure that by December next year, all eligible Nigerians are captured in the national identity database. It was at the formal launch and issuance of the National Identification Number (NIN).
He also directed that all government agencies requiring identity verification and authentication as well as those involved in data capture activities must also align their activities with a view to switching over to the NIMC infrastructure.
Nigeria, over the years has been trying to perfect the identity data base but without success. Due to this difficulty the NIMC established by Act 23 of 2007, took over from the defunct Department of National Civic Registration (DNCR).
In fact, because Nigerians saw achievements recorded under the DNCR as limited, NIMC inherited a certain level of cynicism from the defunct department.
As a result of this history, the Director General of NIMC, Mr. Chris Onyemenam discovered that to talk about the commission, he first has to address the distrust which was transferred from the past to the present.
As a result, the director general returned to the issue during the 1st NIMC summit organized to enlighten local government chairmen on the implementation of the National Identity Management Systems (NIMS).
Organized by Investment Communications Limited on behalf of the commission and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), the summit is in three parts. Earlier on September 18 in Abuja, the first leg of the summit took place for the North Central, North West and North East zones. On October 9, when Onyemenam spoke at the Event Centre in Agindingbi in Ikeja, it was the second leg of the summit for the South West. The last leg scheduled for South-South and South East is taking place in Asaba, Delta State on October 23.
To ensure ownership and achieve impact, the commission entered into a strategic partnership with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) to acquaint local government bosses with identity management.
By February 23, 2012 when NIMC opened its Enrolment Centre within its headquarters in Abuja, it had successfully perfected its database and Back End infrastructure. Since then, NIMC has equally successfully set up other centres in strategic locations in Abuja such as the Federal Secretariat and the Mogadishu Barracks as well as 10 enrolment units in each of the 36 state capitals of the federation.
The federal and state schemes constituted the first phase of the project. The second phase came when NIMC established its presence in each of the local government areas of the country. Additionally, this month NIMC rolled out five pilot mobile enrolment services vehicles.
Although mobile registration services are currently targeting markets and other open places in Abuja, the scheme is actually meant for people living in the hinterland, creeks and other rural areas of the country.
An important feature of the mobile registration units is that after-sale services are part and parcel of the provision in the purchase agreement which incorporates the training of NIMC in-house engineers. This ensures that minor issues are addressed before they escalate into major concerns which require the attention of the manufacturers. These are some of the features which NIMC has put in place to enhance the data capture process.
As with other centres where the processes towards obtaining the all-important National Identification Number (NIN) and National Identity Smart Cards are conducted, mobile enrolment vehicles are brilliantly structured and technically equipped.
These processes consist of the recording of an individual’s demographic data, capturing of 10 fingerprints, head-toshoulder facial picture and digital signature, which are all used to cross-check existing data in the national identity database to confirm there is no previous entry of the same data.
The commission has successfully deployed an Automated Biometric Identity System (ABIS), which allows real-time registration of persons, enabling instant identification and tracking of multiple registrations.
This would be followed by the issuance of cards that are chip-based and designed with more than 18 security features embedded, making it difficult for the cards to be cloned by fraudsters.
ALGON leaders at the meeting under the leadership of their National Chairman, Chief Nwabueze Okafor, said over 50 per cent of Nigeria’s challenges would be solved if NIMC gets the enrolment right.
Expressing apprehension over the possibility of “corrupting” the system at the local government level, for example, the chairmen wondered how fraudsters are to be prevented from being entered into the system and how foreigners may be prevented from using the process to illegally acquire a Nigerian identity.
The DG said enrolling for the National Identification Number (NIN) and National Identity Cards are free and it is collaborating with the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) and the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to create awareness and ensure that “experiences of the past do not repeat themselves.”
So, issuing identity cards is one thing and managing the identity is another. Management in this context includes ability to say that the bearer of the card is actually the person he or she claims. He said this was never possible under the old scheme because, first of all, management was not a part of the overall design of the infrastructure which was meant only to issue cards.
Second, the old system used the 2-D bar code technology and the sheer volume of paper work involved in this made the creation of a data base impossible. What this meant was that the documentation processes of DNCR could not retrieve the data it had collected and accumulated. As a result, the identity cards it issued were mere tokens because they could only refer to themselves. In other words, the various agencies of government and the private sector, from security agencies to banks and airports as well as other travel agencies, which regularly used these cards could not ascertain that persons carrying them were really who the cards said they were.