President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, will tomorrow launch the National Electronic Identity Card, a remarkable milestone in the National Identity Management System (NIMS) and a huge achievement in the overall objectives of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) which has the responsibility to create, maintain and operate the National Identity Database.
NIMC also has the mandate to issue a unique National Identification Number (NIN) to all eligible citizens; provide a secure means to access the National Identity Database; to authenticate and verify identities, and to issue the e-ID Card to every eligible citizen.
Mr. Anthony Okwudiafor, director, Corporate Communications at NIMC, in a statement said that the National e-ID Card which will be officially unveiled at the State House Banquet hall, Abuja on Thursday, is a multi-purpose Card for identification, electronic signatures, biometric on-Card verification, and other applications.
The Card which would subsequently be issued to all Nigerians who have successfully enrolled for the National Identification Number (NIN), has five applications already activated at issuance, with a built in capacity to host more applications post-issuance and on request.
Okwudiafor said that the process of activating applications on the Card will be done in two phase and features of the Card as will be unveiled in the first phase are as follows:
Phase 1 applets include, International Civil Aviation Organisation (‘ICAO’):- compliant travel application to be used as a Machine Readable Travel Document (MRTD), for local/regional travel; Nigerian Electronic Identity (‘eID’) application to be used to authenticate an individual’s identity and Electronic Public Key Infrastructure (‘ePKI’) application to be used for Identification, authentication and digital signatures.
Others are Fingerprint Match-on-Card (‘MoC’) functionality to be used for Biometric (fingerprint) verification; Banking application (‘EMV’) to be used for Deposit, withdrawal, payment, transfer, inquiry, etc.
The second phase applets are, Drivers’ License (IDL) – to be used as International Driver’s License; Transport application (Transport) to be used for loading credits/units on local bus terminals; Tax application (Tax) to be used to make tax payments, verify payments, etc; Voter ID application (Voter) to be used to cast a vote; Pension application (Pension) to be used to manage Retirement Savings Account etc and NHIS application (eHealth) to be used to upgrade, renew, health insurance, etc.
Others are, Insurance application (Insurance) to be used to subscribe to insurance policy, renew insurance policy, etc; SIM application (SIM) to be used as repository for saving a Cardholders personal MSISDN Numbers previously registered with the NCC and Custom tool used to save space for more applets in the future.
The Director added that expected at the Card launch include the Vice President, Nigeria, Namadi Sambo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim; Honorable Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and representatives from International Agencies.
Also expected are Divisional President, Sub Sahara Africa, MasterCard, Mr. Daniel Monehin; the Group Managing Director, Access Bank, Mr. Herbert Wigwe; representatives from the NIMC Harmonisation and Integration Committee, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), among others.