National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Director-General, Aliyu Aziz, has faulted the identification system, arguing that it cannot foster economic growth.
To him, only the National Identification Number (NIN) has the key to the realisation of the Economic Growth and Recovery Plan (EGRP) of the government.
He said the NIN will help the government to effectively deliver services, adding that the government’s plan to strengthen fiscal management and promote good governance and transparency required identifying citizens, this can be achieved only with the NIN, Aziz said.
He spoke on: Innovative Developments Supporting Evolving Digital Economy at the 2017 INDO – AFRICA ICT Expo, organised by the Telecom Equipment & Services Export Promotion Council (TEPC) in Lagos.
According to him, Nigeria’s fragmented identity ecosystem has remained a deterrent to the growth of basic amenities required to realise a reasonable standard of living for the people. This means that key economic challenges, including improving security, rebuilding the economy and tackling corruption in the country had not been tackled because there was no comprehensive central database to guide the provision of those needs.
He said: “Although Nigeria has the potential to be a major player in the global economy, it has continued to struggle with the development and the provision of very basic amenities such as education, healthcare, potable water, food, and housing due to the lack of a central database to aid planning and policy making.”
The NIMC, according to him, has a mandate to populate the National Identity Database (NIDB) with citizen’s data and NIN, as well as ensure that every registered person can be easily and quickly verified and their identities authenticated with the NIN.
“The NIN is a very significant component of the National Identity Management System (NIMS). It is a non-intelligent 11 digit number, issued to individuals upon successful enrolment into the database
“The NIN is a unique identifier, a requisite for the economic, social and political progress which can be verified and authenticated by institutions and persons in both the public and private sector, using the verification and authentication platforms already deployed by NIMC,” he said.
He also said institutions and organisations aiming to scale up the digital economy may not be able to offer innovative products and services to consumers without proper identification as all modern economic services globally are done digitally and rely on proper identification.
