By Chinenye Anuforo,
minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has stressed the need to prioritise the National Identity Number (NIN) over the Bank Verification Number (BVN) in Nigeria.
This is even as he called on all citizens and legal residents to key into the ongoing national identity enrolment exercise as the NIN was the only recognised means of identity recognised by law.
The minister stated this while briefing the press at the end of a tour and inspection of the ongoing NIN enrolment exercise at the National Identity Management Commission and other designated centres across the country.
He explained that the NIN was a law because it was established by law, and “the strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution.’’
He said, “BVN is only applicable to those who have bank accounts but NIN is for every citizen and legal resident in the country.’’
‘‘BVN is our secondary database, while NIN and the database is the primary one in the country that each and every institution should make reference to NIMC.
‘‘On the board of NIMC, CBN governor is a member, DG DSS is a member, chairman of FIRS is a member, INEC chairman, Office of the National Security Adviser, National Population Commission and the Nigeria Immigration Service are all members of the board.
‘‘This is to show you that it is primary database that every institution in the country should make reference to, when it comes to data protection regulations, we are in the forefront in Africa today.
‘‘The level of security in all our database is 99.9 per cent. There is no database that is 100 per cent secure, the highest you can go, I think we are there.”
On why the Federal Government engaged private agents for the NIN enrolment, the minister said it was in line with the global standard, where NIMC, is being made to operate as a regulator, allowing the operators to operate independently.
‘‘Globally, a regulator is not supposed to be the operator as well because, if the regulator is also the operator, who is going to regulate the operator?
‘‘What I inherited was that the NIMC was a full regulator of the sector and also the operator. So, the global standard is to divorce the regulator to be independent from the operator.”
At the MTN office in Maitama, Abuja, the Minister told his hosts that he came with his team to see what had been going on and the improvement that should be made.
He also informed the MTN staff that the ministry was working on the database to make it robust and reliable: ‘‘We are working on that, they are being verified but it is slow due to the high numbers of request. We are working on coming up with one verification and we do hope that the issue will be resolved soon.
“What is most important is that the NIN is the primary identity of each and every citizen, including legal residents.’’
Responding, the general manager of MTN, Amina Danbatta, told the minister, “There are people who have enrolled before but we couldn’t verify their information on the database.”
Another issue raised by the MTN staff was their inability to update enrollment from their office using costumers’ BVN.