World Bank Provides NIMC Support to Capture Citizens, Foreign Nationals

Oghenevwede Ohwovoriole in Abuja

The World Bank has promised to support the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), with technical support the nation’s drive to capture all citizens and foreign residents in the country.

Senior Specialist, Social Development, World Bank, Victoria Korsiak revealed the plan recently in Abuja, noted that it had started working with the Nigeria Identity for Development project 

Korsiak said the government had recognised the importance of digital identification of its citizens and foreign residents and approached them for support and they are going to give Nigeria technical support.

“The Ministry of Finance, NIMC and Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy have recognised how central and important the NIN is for people to be able to have access to services for us to be able to link people across all the sectors in government.”

She said it was the federal government that requested for their technical assistance on how to capture both non-citizens who reside in Nigeria through the NIN enrolment.

“The federal government has recognised how important this project is and has made these requests for this project. We are like technical partners giving technical assistance to all our partners.

 “The government says we want to achieve this. We can help them to design the strategy for achieving that goal. So, the government came to us and made a request said we want NIN for everybody in Nigeria.

“We are providing technical support to NIMC to this team that you see here today in the project implementation unit for thinking about what’s the best way to do this. What’s the best way to set up an enrolment system that covers everybody,” she noted

Speaking at a stakeholders workshop, Korsiak said the goal of the project “is to cover all parts of Nigeria with NIN for everyone whether you are a foreign national or a citizen doesn’t matter.

 “We also know that there are some people that are very hard to reach both for geographic reasons, but also trust issues, lack of awareness and knowledge about the NIN. So, we need civil society MDAs to partner with the international community.” 

In his welcome address, the Coordinator for ID4D, Musa Idole said the Project Development Objective had mandated the project to create a robust foundational ID system for Nigeria that would involve NIMC and the civil registration system under the National Population Commission (NPC), the project had begun engagement with the NPC for areas of support, including digitising the registration of births and deaths, capacity building and a review of their legal and institutional frameworks.” 

“The project has also initiated steps towards strengthening the legal framework on identification and data in Nigeria. Addressing the legal and legislative framework is key at this time. Enactment of a data protection law and amendment of some other existing laws including NIMC Act are important to our operations.”