100 million Nigerians to get national IDs in 30 months - FG

THE Federal Government has set machinery in motion to ensure that every Nigerian gets fully captured in its data base, with world standard compliant national identity card issued for all at the nick of time.This is coming as hundreds of ex-staff of National Identity Management Corporation (NIMC) staged a protest against what they described as their illegal sack by the management.The government, however, said once the process of registering Nigerians for national identity card begins, 100 million Nigerians would be issued with the standard identity cards within 30 months, given the arrangements currently in place.The Director-General, NIMC, Chris Onyemenam, disclosed this in Abuja, on Thursday, during a media briefing, stating that with the new measure in place, it would be easy to track robbers, terrorist and other criminals within the Nigerian society.The national identity card, he stressed, would also assist the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to forge ahead with its plan to deploy e-voting in conducting the next general election in 2015.He said the new measure would make it mandatory for anyone to get the new ID card before collecting driver licences, registering for SIM cards of GSM and making sundry banking transactions.Issuance of the card, according to the Director-General, was, at the moment, restricted to pilot states, including Bauchi, Kano, Lagos, Enugu and Bayelsa states, noting that every state and local government of the federation would be considered for the purpose in due course.Onyemenam, however, dismissed allegations by the protesting ex-workers, disclosing that their sack had been long, due to several factors which, according to him, ranged from fraudulent practices, redundancy and divided loyalty, just as he alleged that many of those sacked were certified ghost workers.
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