The Director General, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Aliyu Aziz has reiterated the commission’s commitment  to delivering world class identity ecosystem for Nigeria; focusing on giving Nigeria a world class identity management infrastructure, which will be pivotal to the security and socio-economic transformation of the country.

Aziz gave the assurance in Kano on Tuesday during the declaration of  a 60 day emergency enrollment ‎into the National Identity Number and voters card registration in Kano state.

“It is a sustainable system whereby the data gathering and collection will no longer be by NIMC alone rather all the data capturing agencies ‎in the federal, state, local government levels and other private sectors. They will be licensed by NIMC to capture the data on its behalf using the gazetted national standard for biometric capture,” he said.

According to him, it was important to put an ecosystem in place because the service and the enrollment are free of charge and the license would be paid from the project fund for each successful registration that generates a NIN.

‎”It is also an opportunity for people of Kano State with population of about 20 million residents with large percentage young graduates and robust business community to galvanise this groups to leverage opportunities present in the ecosystem and generate income for its youths while assuring the capture of its residents in the national data base,” he added.

Aziz also said that the commission in its bid to ensure successful take-off of the ecosystem, obtained the approval of the Attorney General of the Federation and gazetted five regulations which were distributed. He said that the most important part of it was the mandatory use of NIN for all government services.

The country, he added would emulate other developed countries like the United States, which issues the Social Security Number, the United Kingdom, with the National Insurance Number; and India with the largest data base of more than recently enrolled about 1 billion people issued with the Aadhaar.

The Director General also emphasised the importance of NIN to the citizens, the Government and private sector institutions thereby promoting socio-economic and political development, saying that NIN enhances the work of law enforcement agencies, in the areas of public safety, policing, national security and eliminates ghost and multiple identities.

In the area of enrollment centers, the DG said that Kano state has the highest number‎ on 68 centers across the 44 local government areas of the state even as the President, Muhammadu Buhari, according to him had directed the commission to emboss NIN on the International Passport and all other government documents.

Aziz then commended Kano state government, Emirate Council , religious leaders and order stakeholders for ‎providing conducive environment for the commission in discharging its duties in the state.

Earlier, the state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje stressed the importance of National Identity card and voters card to the socio-economic development of the state and country at large. He added that NIN would also help in eliminating identity fraud, ghost workers and other crimes.

Ganduje said that the state government had provided V-sat, solar panels, inverters and annual subscription fee and other relevant tools for the commission in all the 44 local governments in the state.

The representative of INEC, Malam Muhammad Hussain, also said that the responsibility of conducting a successful voter registration and subsequent conduct of free and fair election was not the responsibility of INEC alone but all stakeholders have important role to play.

He called on state government, religious leaders, Emirate ‎Council and other stakeholders to sensitize the people of the state on the importance of registration and collection PVC. (NAN)