Chuks
Udo Okonta
To
resolve Nigeria’s lingering identity management challenge, strident calls were
made by experts at the 2014 annual lecture of the Chartered Institute of
Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) for the review of the National Identity Management
Commission (NIMC) Act which promotes centralisation in place of multi-layered
identity assurance scheme.
Centralisation,
in the views of experts drawn from technology, banking, insurance and the
academia, is the albatross of Nigeria’s dithering identity management
programme. Describing Nigeria’s failure at citizen identity assurance as
frustrating, Chief Joseph Sanusi, former governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN), said “Establishing a national database and identifying the
Nigerian has been on the front burner as far as 20 years ago. It is
embarrassing that we have not reached that stage. All other countries have
gotten it done.”
Keynote
speaker at the annual lecture themed, “Identity Management: A catalyst for the
new economic and financial service transformation”, Demola Aladekomo, Managing
Director of Chams Plc and identity management pioneer, made a case for a
multi-dimensional approach to identity management which is global best
practise. “No system depends on a single point of failure such as single
national database to meet all identity assurance needs. We need to cross
reference several databases to be able to really ascertain who is who. No
single database can do this. We need multiple databases which are integrated
into the national database as obtains in other countries.”
Reacting
to the keynote address, Chris Onyemena, Director of NIMC who was a panellist at
the annual lecture, said “It is provided in the constitution that biometric
data is an exclusive legislative item. Only the Federal Government can do it.
In this country, we know that some states went ahead to create their own laws
to provide for residency cards. The federal government after years of limited
success and failures established the National Identity Management Commission
vested with the authority to keep biometric information of all Nigerians and
the provision for legal residence, whether you are in the private sector or
public sector. That is the position of the law.”
Affirming
the benefits of multi-layered approach to identity management, Professor
Ibidapo Obe, former Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos (UNILAG) urged
Nigeria to take learnings from the United States of America where there is a
hierarchy of authority and systems in identity management to ensure that we
resolve our teething national identity challenge. Professor Obe recalled the
State of Texas meeting his identity assurance needs including issuance of a
driver’s license and identity card which would have been impossible if identity
assurance was centralised in the United States. In conclusion, he alluded to
the state of disrepair of the Nigerian Railway Corporation because the same law
states that nobody can run a railway except the federal government.
On
her part, Mrs. Rosemary Oluwanisola, Bank Examiner at Nigeria Deposit Insurance
Commission (NDIC), said “I agree that the issue of identity management is a
constitutional issue because government should take responsibility for
identifying Nigerians, but how long is it going to take government to get this
done. First quarter of the year, we were mobilised by NDIC to be part of
biometric capture for the national identity scheme, today we are still waiting
for the outcome of that process. But today, I have my Bank Verification Number
(BVN). Let us not confuse effort for results.”
In a
similar vein, expressing disenchantment with the centralisation of biometric
data for identity management, Bolaji Agbola, Executive Director, Cashcraft
Asset Management Limited, said “NIMC should assume the regulatory role and free
market for concessionaires to operate so that we can have the national identity
card.
For
instance, in the last six months, I have been trying to procure driver’s
license without success. We need to decentralise all of this, and empower the
private sector to do it. If the NIMC law is defective let us change it. The
NIMC DG is looking at the issue from the legal point of view, we want it but for
two weeks we were locked up to make an identity card without a signature which
is useless.
India,
they have registered about 70 per cent of their of their population. What other
nations are doing let us benchmark them and make progress.”
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