Galaxy Backbone Completes NIMC ICT Infrastructure Project

Galaxy Backbone has completed and delivered the first phase of a nationwide national identity management ICT infrastructure network.
Speaking during the commissioning tour of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) State Offices in the south-south Dr. Chris Onyemenam, Director-General, NIMC, said that data and biometric capturing will soon commence across the 36 states and the federal capital territory with the commissioning of the nationwide wide area network (WAN) by Galaxy Backbone and the recent signing of concession agreements with some ICT partners. The contract was awarded to Galaxy Backbone in 2008.
Dr. Onyemenam, reiterated the fact that the focus of NIMC has moved from mere issuance of national identity cards to the implementation of a national identity management solution that will conform to world class standards.
He said: “the process would begin in about three months and explained that in the new system people would be issued fresh identity cards, different from what was currently in circulation. He, however, clarified that current holders of the identity card would have them revalidated”.
He explained that the validation process will entail that people who currently hold the national identity cards, will go through some kind of re-registration, particularly in finger printing.
“A validation process will take place. You know that during the first exercise, six finger prints of people were taken but in this new one, we are going to take 10 finger prints. But in this transition period, the cards in circulation now are still going to be useful although we will no longer re-issue that card. We will issue a different card henceforth. Before we begin the issuance of the new card, we want to put in place a data base for all time that you can only be updating.”
He observed that the system used in the previous national identity card registration under DNCR by Sagem of France was a major source of errors discovered in the biographic data processes. He said that the nationwide national identity ICT infrastructure deployed by Galaxy Backbone  is part of the connectivity network infrastructure that is required to enable the commission transmit data electronically. “The Commission will soon take delivery of the infrastructure which will accelerate the electronic transmission of our database in the next three months once the registration centres are ready. “The ICT infrastructure will enable us to build a secure, reliable national identity data base because once the data is processed; a unique national identification number will be issued to people. That is what we want to achieve and once we achieve that, it becomes easy to issue a smart card and to do so many other things”.
Dr. Onyemenam further explained that the contract approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2008 and awarded to Galaxy Backbone was for the provision of a 12 km fibre optic network in the FCT that connects 14 Federal Government agencies to the NIMC headquarters in Abuja. The data hosting of the national identity management database at the Government Data Centre in Abuja is operated by Galaxy Backbone; and has offsite Data Backup/Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity facility located in the North-West zone as well as the provision of dedicated VSAT connectivity to the 36 states offices, the FCT and the Commission’s head office.
Also speaking at the commissioning, Mr. Gerald Ilukwe, managing director, Galaxy Backbone, said that the implementation of a national identity management scheme plays a key role in national security and is a major pillar for national development. He noted that the present national identity management system is designed to support several segments of the economy, ranging from traffic management, conducting elections, healthcare delivery, and financial services among several others.
Ilukwe noted that Galaxy Backbone was aware that the success of NIMC in achieving the objectives of a robust national identity management system by using the company’s network infrastructure will also impact on the success of his own organization. He therefore pledged that the ICT Company, which is also Federal Government-owned, will continue to support NIMC programmes.