National Identity Card To Complement Voters Card – Buhari

President Mohammdu Buhari has emphasised the importance of National
identity card to all Nigerians of voting age, stating that it would in the future
complement the Voters card.
The president who registered on Tuesday at the presidential Villa, Abuja to
obtain his national identity card urged Nigerians to embrace the exercise.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after the registration that was
supervised by Director-General of the National Identity Management
Commission, NIMC, Mr. Chris Onyemenam said for the purposes of
credible elections, Nigerians should ensure that get registered.
“I think this exercise is very important to confirm our population and those
who are entitled to vote, that is those who are 18 years and above.
It will complement the exercise of the permanent voters card.
“So, for those who want their votes to count from whichever party or
constituency, they should ensure that they and their families are properly
captured”, he said.
Also speaking, the DG, Mr. Oyemenam stated that the exercise has come to
stay.
He hinted that about 7 million Nigerians have so far registered.
“On our data base, we have a record of seven million. In collaboration
with other agencies, in the next three months or so, we hope to quadruple
that number.
In the past, the private sector was expected to perform that role, so
government did not focus on that.
“The close to seven million that we have in our data base is the product of
the pilot scheme that we embarked upon to demonstrate the value of the
scheme.
“Now that the MDAs are going to step up the harmonisation, the data base
will be populated in a matter of weeks.
“As a matter of fact, we are at the stage of migrating the data from the
Bank Verification Number and that is about 20million.
“We are truly on course and appreciate Mr. President for that recent
directive that biometrics data bases in government agencies should be
expeditiously harmonised.
The DG also assured that designated centres were open for service to the
people, stressing that efforts were being made to create outlets at the local
government levels.
“This exercise is not a one offthing in the sense that there is no time limit. It
is a continuous exercise. So every enrolment centre that we have established
remain open forever, they are like branches of banks.
“We are taking deliberate steps to ensure that enrolment centres are opened in
each local government.
I”n collaboration with MDAs, we are now extending it to universities. It will
also be extended to primary schools and hospitals.
“With the cooperation we expect from INEC, we are meeting INEC today,
it will be extended even further.
“Because of the records of births and deaths that are the primary
responsibility of the Nigerian Population Commission, it will even become
wider because there are more centres for the registration of births and
deaths.
“Once a centre is established, it remains there and people can go their and
enroll at their convenient time. They will do the pre-enrollment first because
going to any centre for the biometric data capture”, he said.
Source: Vanguard