Nigerians have tasked the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, on crowd management and minimizing physical contacts with regards to the on-going National Identity Number enrollment exercise in the country.
Speaking on an exclusive interview with Energy Frontier, Joe Nwokedi of Interveners and Joe Nwokedi Solicitors said the issue of how to contain the crowd especially during this new trend of ravaging pandemic. “That is my major concern as it will increase the spread of COVID -19 pandemic in the country”, he said.
The Human Right Lawyer stated that the operation is dangerous to the people’s health, converging people in a particular place where some people will not observe COVID-19 protocols, will be dangerous to the health of Nigerians. “It is not a good strategy at all. NIMC should think of encouraging people to do it on their own online”, he stated.
He maintained that the effort should be geared towards getting people online. They should consult Information technology companies to develop Apps that will enable people do it on their own. They will still achieve the same result. Nigerians can log in and do it on their own instead of physical appearance.
Rather than encouraging physical appearance, he said, NIMC should minimize physical contacts with people. They should liaise with BVN data to get all the information they want.
Supporting this view, Edward Olabisi said that the commission should halt the exercise due to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic.
According to him, this is not the best time for the enrollment exercise if it cannot be done online.
“ Why is it that it is this particular period that Nigerians are advised to do all their best in minimizing going out because of the pandemic that NIMC is establishing enrollment centres to capture people data”, he asked.
The exercise according to him is dangerous because it might trigger the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking in the same vein, Ossai Igwe, said the Federal Government should be mindful of programmes it rolls out in a particular time.
“We tend to make everything a big issue in the country. Ordinarily data from the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Independent National Election Commission, INEC, Financial Institutions with regards to the Banks Verification Number should be synchronized and NIMC will have whatever they are looking for with regards to the National Identification Number, NIN”.
It will be recalled that NIMC has insisted that it is compulsory for Nigerians to visit the enrolment centres to complete their National Identification Number registration.
It stressed that it was important for people not to get carried away with the generation of NIN due to Bank Verification Number (BVN) record harmonisation with the National Identity Database.
In a post on its Twitter handle on last week, the agency asked those who have gotten their NIN through such a process to visit the enrolment centres to validate their number.
It said, “NIN generated by the BVN can only be used after it has been updated at the NIMC enrolment center. You must complete your NIN registration even if your BVN has generated a NIN.”
“If your NIN was generated due to BVN record harmonisation with the National Identity Database, you will not have access to the NIMC mobile app, and your NIN-SIM integration will be invalid.
“Kindly visit an enrolment centre to complete your NIN registration,” another tweet read.
The NIMC made the clarification following the controversy sparked by the use of shortcodes to generate the NIN.
This comes after some enrolees said they got the number after getting registered for the BVN, insisting that there was no need to visit any NIMC centre again.
Amid the second wave of COVID-19 in the country, thousands of Nigerians storm the NIMC enrolment centres daily.
There are fears that the rate of transmission at the enrolment centres is high because the enrolees fail to comply with the COVID-19 protocols
