Nigeria Gets Committee on Unifying Demographic Database

The Federal Government has inaugurated a Committee to midwife the streamlining of a centralised demographic database for the country.

Namadi Sambo, the Vice President while inaugurating the Committee in the State House, Abuja, within the week, stated the terms of reference to include “determining the Agency that has the constitutional responsibility to host the centralised database and streamlining the efforts already being made by various agencies in this regard in order to synergize these efforts in the proposed centralised system".

The Committee is also expected to, "examine and make recommendations on the imperatives of the centralised system on security, funding, management, authenticity and sustainability of data collection and applications, and examine and make recommendations on all issues incidental to the efficient application of data in the management of our national affairs”.

The Committee chaired by the Vice President as Chairman also has as it members to include Attorney-General of the Federation, Ministers of Finance, National Planning, Communication Technology, Health, Education, Agriculture and Rural Development, Science and Technology, Inspector General of Police, Comptroller General of Immigration Service, Director General of National Population Commission and Director General of National Bureau of Statistics.

Other are: Director General, National Identity Management Commission, Executive Secretary, National Health Insurance Scheme, Corps Marshall, Federal Road Safety Corps, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone, Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDG, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund and three representatives of the private sector which include the Bankers Committee, Jim Ovia, Aliko Dangote, the Permanent Secretary (GSO) Office of the OSGF to serve as Secretary.

The Vice President further set up three sub-committees namely two Sub-Technical Committees and Legal Sub-Committee and charged them to work on the term of reference provided to realise   President Jonathan’s objective which was to provide a centralised database for the country within four weeks.