NIMC Registers 7m Nigerians

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), has said it has enrolled seven million Nigerians on its database out of the 13 million estimated for the pilot scheme.

Mr Chris Onyemenam, director-general of the commission, who stated this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, also said the commission’s facilities had the capacity to register 300 million citizens, urging Nigerians to utilise the opportunity and register for their identification cards.

According to him, the Federal Government considered it necessary to centralise the process of ascertaining the identity of every Nigerian within a national framework.

“Right now in the database, we have about seven million Nigerians, which is quite poor because there have been a deliberate effort by NIMC, through third parties, to do better than this record.

“These third parties have not been able to deliver in four years; as such, by February this year, those contracts were terminated.

“So, if we did not do what we had done and were waiting for them, NIMC would have nothing in the database.

“It is from the harmonisation that we hope if concluded soon, NIMC will get the volume of data to make up for the gap that had been created by these concessioners.’’