Resolving a National Challenge
Nigeria,
with a population of over 160 million, has a long history of failures in
finding an efficient and effective means of citizen identity management.
This includes registering, populating, issuing
a proof of identity, and most importantly updating and retrieving data of
citizens and legal residents from a secure database, when needed.
A
person’s proof of identity means a kind of reference which can be used to
differentiate one unique individual from another. The usual impression is that
it is just another ID card or piece of paper on which a person’s name is
written.
Here
in Nigeria we have various kinds of representation of an individual’s identity;
unfortunately most of them can easily be duplicated, making it prone to all
kinds of identity fraud e.g. identity theft (impersonation), the ghost worker
syndrome, little or no opportunity for consumer credit market system etc, all
these issues contribute to the lack of growth and development of the Nigerian
economy.