National ID card to complement voters card says Buhari

Buhari
By Levinus Nwabughiogu

ABUJA – 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.