HAVE YOU REGISTERED? Avoid 6months imprisonment please! Enforcing National ID scheme in January 2019.

   HAVE YOU REGISTERED? Avoid 6months imprisonment please!

Enforcing National ID scheme in January 2019

ONE of the most frustrating attributes of the public service in
Nigeria is the typical perfunctory attitude of officers to their jobs
and lack of regard to the very members of the public they are
employed to serve. This has again reared its head in the touted
intention of the Federal Government to start implementing the
mandatory use of the National Identification Number, NIN, as from
January 1, 2019, less than 60 days away.

Back on September 12, 2018, the Federal Executive Council, FEC,
had approved “the strategic roadmap for Digital Identity
Ecosystem” which, according to the Director General/CEO of the
National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, Mr. Aliyu Aziz,
would bring into full force the implementation of the NIMC Act 23
of 2007 as from January 1, 2019.
The Act spells out the powers, functions and sanctions connected
with the implementation of the National ID scheme by the NIMC.
Of particular interest to the public are items 4 and 11 of the
offences and penalties under the Act. Item 4 specifies that failure
to register for the National Identification Number by eligible
persons (all Nigerian citizens) would attract imprisonment for not
less than six months or a fine of N100,000. Item 11 provides that
the registration of wrong persons (foreigners) by card collection
and activation officers will attract the same penalty.
The Federal Government appears keen to quickly get the NIN
scheme to play its role in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan,
ERGP. It will enable government to meet the critical needs of the
citizenry in the areas of food security, energy, transportation,
human capital development and in developing the local digital
economy.
Queerly enough, both the Federal Government and the NIMC have
since gone mute after the September declarations. Apart from the
recently-concluded flurry of identity registration exercises by the
NIMC, there is very little in the public domain to show that
January 1, 2019 is the “D” Day for the mandatory enforcement of
the NIN.