‘National ID Card not Replacing Voters Card in 2019’

Clement Danhutor

Contrary to reports in some online media that the national identity card would replace voters register in 2019, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has clarified that the report was misconstrued and out of context.

According to a statement issued by the Head of Corporate Communications Unit of NIMC, Mr. Loveday Chika Ogbonna, the report emanated from a visit to a royal father in Delta State where the commission’s Delta State Coordinator explained the possibility of harmonising all identity related data on one card, an issue which was wrongly reported.

“Management wishes to state that the said headline is false and that our State Coordinator was quoted out of context by the reporter. The electronic ID Card issued by NIMC has a number of applets built into it, which makes it capable and available for use in up to 13 use cases and scenarios, but at no time during the advocacy visit by our Delta State team to the royal father did the state coordinator announce that the eID Card will replace the voters card presently issued and used for elections by INEC.

“The state coordinator did not grant any press briefing or interviews during the visit, neither was she at the palace to make any announcement concerning any elections. The primary reason for the visit was to seek the support of the royal father in the renewed drive by the new DG of NIMC Engr. Aliyu Abubakar Aziz to increase the number of enrolment for the National Identification Number (NIN) and brief him on the collaboration between NIMC and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to uniquely register and issue NIN to farmers in Delta state under the National Agricultural Payment Initiative (NAPI).

“The NIMC and INEC are both working harmoniously with other data collecting agencies of government towards the aggregation of all citizens’ biometric data in order to achieve a single national database as directed recently by Mr. President. That is the extent to which both Commissions of government are in partnership at the moment”, the statement clarified.