100m Nigerians without ID Cards

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has said that majority of Nigerians have no official identity and that 75 per cent of identity documents are fake and self issued.

Chris Onyemenam, director-general/chief executive Officer of NIMC who put the number of Nigerians without official identity at 100 million also said there is no timely means of authenticating the documents whether genuine or otherwise.

He said that the commission set for the data capture of Nigerians next year, stressing that all back-end infrastructure, which is central to the delivery of the NIMS project has been fully operational

Onyemenam added that the components for the front-end, which is being managed under a public private partnership has reached advanced stages of deployment in over 20 states nationwide.

He said that the National Identity Management System (NIMS) will connect and integrate all the various databases of stakeholder agencies when fully deployed, stressing that in most cases and there will be no need for any further biometric data capture by other agencies.

He said the Front-End Partners (FEPs) are responsible for personalisation and issuance of the ID cards.

However, he said to ensure rapid and efficient service delivery, third-party postal services, as necessary, would be utilised, adding that it is expected that most cards will be collected at the enrolment centre by the owner because of challenges due to lack of proper addresses.

According to him, the important thing though is that you can track your application through the third-party contact centres.

Onyemenam highlighted some key issues that led to the current insecurity challenges facing Nigeria today. He stated that an average Nigerian parades multiple and unreliable identities, adding that this has led to over 75 per cent fake and counterfeits identities in Nigeria.