NIMC AND FRSC TO HARMONIZE DATABASES

In line with President Muhammadu Buhari's directive on August 10 2015, to all agencies involved in collection and usage of biometric data in Nigeria to harmonize the data captured, Director General of the National Identioty Management Commission, Chris Onyemenam on Wenesday this week paid a courtesy call on the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission, Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, at the FRSC Headquarters in Abuja.It will be recalled that the FRSC had made the move recently by releasing a press statement stating its readiness to collaborate with NIMC, in line with President Buhari's directive.

PRESS RELEASE ON DG's COURTESY CALL ON THE Ag. CHAIRMAN INEC.

NIMC AND INEC COMPLY WITH PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE ON HARMONISATION OF BIOMETRIC DATA: SET UP JOINT TECHNICAL COMMITTEE.

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have agreed to immediately commence implementation of the Presidential directive on harmonization and integration of Biometric Data capture by the various government concerned parastatals. To conclusively achieve this, both Commissions have set up a joint technical committee to work out modalities for the seamless integration of INEC Database into the National Identity Database managed by NIMC.

DISCLAIMER

The attention of NIMC management has been drawn to rumors making the rounds that the National Identity Management Commission is recruiting. We wish to inform the general public that NIMC IS NOT RECRUITING.

Please disregard any such information.

Thank you.

NIMC IS NOT TO BLAME FOR CHAMS MISFORTUNE

The Management of the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, has read the newspaper report in the Saturday August 22nd, 2015, edition of Thisday Newspapers in which the founding Managing Director of Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo claimed that Chams City Project, spread across Abuja, Portharcourt, Benin City and Lagos are folding up, having gone bankrupt as a result of its intellectual property and technical partners allegedly been stolen by the NIMC.

The National Identity Management Commission categorically denies all the allegations in the report and reject in its entirety the provocative and disrespectful attempt by the Mr. Aladekomo led Management of Chams Plc to blame NIMC for its poor performance which has resulted in the reported shut down of Chams City Project operations, perhaps including the suspension of the Chams Plc shares from trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange sometime ago.

PRESS RELEASE ON PRESIDENTIAL ENROLMENT

President Muhammadu Buhari has on Tuesday 25th August 2015 enrolled for his National Identification Number at the NIN enrolment centre in the Aso Rock Villa. 

PRESS RELEASE

NIMC set to Deploy Authentication and verification Service link to MDAs, Banks

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said it has completed all plans to deploy the National Identification Number (NIN) authentication and verification Service link to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) and Banks.

The General Manager, Information Technology and Identity Database (IT/IDD), Mr. Chuks Onyepunuka, in an interview, stated that the deployment was part of the Commission’s strategy to ensure the proposed September commencement of the mandatory use of NIN.

According to him, all Government institutions and Agencies who require the biometrics of individuals to offer functional services or for security reasons are required by Law to key into the NIMC National Identity Database for the purpose of identity management and verification.

He noted that NIMC has before now, deployed the authentication and verification service link to the office of one of the security agencies and would soon after extend to other security agencies. The NIMC is now set to deploy a pilot phase to MDA’s and Banks.

Mr. Onyepunuka further noted that NIMC is discussing with on the MDA’s and Banks to enable them ascertain the infrastructure to achieve the deployment of the NIN authentication and verification service link to their various offices nationwide.

“These institutions include the banks, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Ministry of Aviation, Joint Tax Board (JTB), State House, National Universities Commission (NUC), National Pension Commission (PenCom), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), etc.,” he further noted.

At a commercial demonstration session which held at the NIMC headquarters recently, Mr. Onyepunuka disclosed that the verification and authentication of the NIN can be done at two levels: the online, which has two approaches, and the offline platform.

“The online version has the web portal approach used for NIN verification alone; while the desk top is a robust windows based approach that allows an individual or organisation to conduct the NIN, Fingerprint, demographics and document number verification,” he said.

He explained that on presentation of the NIN or the fingerprints, the individual or organisation requesting such proof shall utilise the online National Identity Management System (NIMS) NIN verification service through the authentication and verification Clearing House to confirm such identity.

He added: “For the offline platform, on presentation of the National Electronic Identity Card, the individual or organisation requesting such identity, shall authenticate the identity by conducting a Match on Card verification (MoC), an irrefutable offline confirmation by requesting the person to provide his finger prints on a card reading device to enable the matching of the finger print provided with the finger prints stored in the chip of the National eID Card.”

He further explained that the individual or organisation requesting such a proof has access rights and privileges to determine what category of verification he is allowed to conduct on the individual and what category of data he is allowed to view.

He urged Nigerians to take advantage of the over 400 enrolment centres nationwide to enrol for the NIN because no government agency/institution, bank, or insurance company, etc., offering services and/or involved in transactions requiring the identity of an individual, will be allowed to conduct such a transaction without first demanding for the NIN. 

“Eligible applicants are urged to utilize the NIMC pre-enrolment portal, https://penrol.nimc.gov.ng, to pre-enrol for the NIN before proceeding to any NIMC enrolment centre closest to them for biometrics data capture.” He reiterated.

PRESS RELEASE

NIMC, PENCOM Deepen Partnership for National Development

The National Pension Commission, has pledged to hasten the process of harmonising and integrating the PENCOM database with the National Identity database to ensure complete synergy with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

The Director General, PENCOM, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, was speaking when the Director General/CEO of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Barrister Chris ‘E Onyemenam paid her a courtesy visit at the PENCOM Headquarters last Wednesday 29th July, 2015 to further review collaborations.

According to Mrs. Anohu-Amazu, PENCOM is a sister organisation to NIMC, and where we are now is a clear indication that we are working towards the same goal and must work together, to ensure that our organisational roles and mandates are achieved seamlessly.

She noted that PENCOM is poised to serve not only the pensioners of today, but the contributors to the various pension funds who are they pensioners of tomorrow. “There has always been a great need for proper identification and verification in the pension industry to ensure little or no case of identity theft. It’s a good thing that NIMC and PENCOM are poised to make a positive impact and contribute to the country’s economy and development.

Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu further noted, “The NIMC Idea in PENCOM’s estimation is a fabulous idea. Long before the inception of the highly structured Pension industry that exist today, there has been a fundamental need for a foundation Identity Database which all the Agencies and private organisations can fall back on at any given time, and we are glad that NIMC has put such structure on ground.”

She explained that PENCOM is mandated by law to run its own Funtional database, but will also ensure that the PENCOM database remains in harmony and in sync with the foundation database of NIMC. “PENCOM has regularly engaged and will continue to engage NIMC to ensure that we are in complete synergy with NIMC.”

“While managing PENCOM's functional database, we strive to continually take cues from NIMC's expertise in identity management and we are indeed excited about the future as we continue to partner,” she said.

The Director General, NIMC, in his response, noted that NIMC’s core mandate is identity management. “The major reasons for identity theft and fraud related activities in the country is the lack of record keeping. Over the decades, Nigeria didn’t have an identity database, which made identity theft and fraud very commonplace among Nigerians.”

He stated that a lot of people are known to have multiple identities that they use for varied reasons. “This is costing the Pension industry, the bank industry and the likes, hundreds of millions of naira annually, thus the need for a central database to check the number of times people change their names and identities.

The NIMC DG explained that with the National Identity Database now in place, every individual who enrolls into the database is allowed to lie to the system just once; because once the details are captured, it is stored against the individual’s biometrics and headshot so that in the next 20 years or more, the same details can be referred to with the help of the National Identification Number (NIN).

“Cases of ghost workers, falsification of age and names, fraud, identity theft, etc., are some of the problems faced in our industry that will be curtailed and eliminated with a centralized identity database, replete with biometric information,” he added.