President Muhammadu Buhari has been issued his National Identity card by the Director General of the National Identity Management Corporation, Chris Onyemenam.
In view of the receipt of the ID card, the president charged the corporation to ensure harmonization and integration of data obtained by other government and non-governmental agencies.
Briefing State House correspondents today, Onyemenam who disclosed the basis of his visit to the Villa said: “First, we demonstrated to the President how the national identification number can be used to confirm the identity of an individual even if the person is not present and that is the reason why we stated the identification number is a security number. Because with that and if you have access to our data base, you can confirm the identity of an individual.
“Secondly we presented the electronic card to the President and we demonstrated to him how it will be taken round. This is one Rome that was not built in a day, slow and steady. With the help of harmonization and integration, that he has directed, we are getting rapidly far more than we ever did before, in trying to unite our data base, and I demonstrated that.
"So basically, what we did was to activate the electronic identity and the security on it and subsequently, the payment solutions on the card and I explained to the President, that there are certain applications on the card and this activation that he has done cut across the entire activation. What is then left is for each agency, once they are using their own application to then customize it with their security on it and then control the use of that application.”
He added that with the progress made by the Corporation, biometrics would be stopped by many agencies as integration and harmonization would have been achieved.
“We are processing close to 20 million data from the Bank Verification Number scheme. We have also collaborated with INEC, PENCOM, Nigeria Police, NCC, Road Safety, Immigration,” he stated.