The Nigerian Government says it plans to replace the Bank Verification Numbers, BVN, with the National Identity Numbers, NIN.
This will be done by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, made this known in Abuja, when he led Government’s delegation to supervise the on-going NIN registration exercise by Mobile Network Operators , private enrolling centers and to interact with prospective enrollees.
He said he had made a presentation to the National Economic Sustainability Committee and drew the attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Governor on the need to replace BVN with NIN.
According to him, the BVN is a bank policy while NIN is a law.
“Because it has been established by law, so the strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution,” he said.
Dr. Pantami said that the two were working on it, explaining that the CBN had more workload to facilitate the process to make it much easier for Nigerians.
According to Pantami, the challenge is that the BVN records may not be 100% the same with NIN but what is most important is that the NIN is the primary identity of each and every citizens including legal residents.
He said;“BVN is a policy of a bank and has not been established by law. The NIMC Act 2007 provides that all our citizens must enroll and the law gives them 60 days to enroll from the time the law was enacted and a maximum of 180 days.
“All permanent residents in the country and legal residents that have to stay here for a minimum of 24 months must enroll so that the primary identification of all and all other databases are supposed to utilise this and not for NIN to utilise the BVN because it is the primary one.
“Some of the challenges encountered, NIMC produced the template for registering citizens passport, BVN and others but some institutions did not comply with the requirements…Even in biometrics, some will just take four, some two, so you cannot harmonise without upgrading and integrating the system.”
He listed members on the board of NIMC, which includes CBN Governor, DG SSS, Chairman FIRS, INEC Chairman,Office of National Security Adviser, National Population Commission, and National Immigration.
Oversee
The Minister noted that the Nigerian Government had accredited 203 operators that would help enroll citizens to secure their NIN, explaining that the visit was to oversee how the exercise had been.
The Chief Executive Officer of Office Machines Nigeria Limited, one of the accredited operators center, Mr. Okechukwu Ikpe expressed delight and promised that the center would do its best to meet up with expectations.
Walk in and register
Meanwhile, the Stock Controller, Gloworld Abuja, Mrs Regina Omenogor commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the initiative, stating that a lot of people can simply walk in and register.
“It is accessible now and since we work for private organisation, we maintain all the Covid-19 protocols as directed by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control ,NCDC, and the Presidency, ” she said.
Government had granted licences to network operators under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), and other private centers to enrol Nigerians into the national identity database and to enable them obtain their National Identity Numbers.
The new moves were to decongest the crowd witnessed at the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) centers across the country, to ensure that all Covid-19 protocals were followed and to ease the burden on the citizens.
The delegation included the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Director General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
The first point of call of the delegation led by the Minister was the NIMC’s Gwarinpa Enrollment Center, Abuja followed by MTN, Airtel, Glo Enrollment Centers in Abuja and Machine Nigeria Limited, Abuja among others.
Lateefah Ibrahim
