Nigerians can now request their banks to issue them with a debit card that doubles as their National Identity Card, following recent order from President Buhari.
This was disclosed by Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Prof. Isa Pantami in Abuja, while stating that the approval was obtained at the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
He added that the approval followed a memo from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) permitting banks to print debit cards that double as National identity cards, while also disclosing that the request for NIN cards comes with no cost.
In his words,
“As in the NIMC Act 2007, section 27, what is mandatory for our citizens and legal residents is the acquiring of the National Identity Number, not the card. However, the card is optional. But many citizens, particularly those living in rural communities, always go to NIMC offices complaining that they need the card at hand, even though it’s optional. To make it easier, NIMC last year, we introduced a smart ID card you can download from the NIMC app. It is just a smart card. You don’t need to have it physically, but that is becoming difficult for our people living in rural communities.
“To ease the difficulty, NIMC had partnered with the Central Bank of Nigeria so that citizens who are interested in having a card at hand can easily go to the relevant banks. It is going to be a form of a multipurpose card that will serve as your national identity card on one hand and also your bank card on the other. And based on the agreement, it is without any additional costs to our citizens. So when you apply for a card at your bank, you can indicate that ‘I want this card to be multiple purposes where it will serve as my bank card and also my national identity card. Both of them are going to be printed on the same card and it is going to serve the same purposes without any additional costs”.
Pantami further added that, when an individual requests the card, the bank will need to connect to the NIMC through their database. Afterward, the bank verifies the person’s details which must be in conjunction with the record in the NIMC database. Then, the card will be printed immediately for the user.
Investors King understands that this new directive from President Buhari ordering banks to issue NIN cards to citizens will ease the difficulty in obtaining the cards.