Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, has said that identification schemes had become critical infrastructure for economic development in most nations of the world.

Anyim spoke in Lagos at a one-day business forum jointly organised by the Nigerian American Chamber of Commerce (NACC) and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

Speaking on theme: ‘Resolving Nigeria’s Identity Management Crisis’, Anyim said that the ongoing issuance of National Identification Number (NIN) would eradicate problems of multiple identity and identity theft in the country.

He said that the inclusion of the private sector in the project was in its effort to project the country into technology-driven identity management systems and guarantee its sustainability.

The Director-General of NIMC, Mr Chris Onyemenam, underscored the importance of NIN and the National Identity Smart Cards in the elimination of identity management crisis in the country.

“It will make life easier by providing you with an easy and convenient means of identification in Nigeria.

“It will help reform our political process by facilitating the work of the managers of the electoral process,” he said.

Onyemenam assured that the agency was employing strategies that would ensure that personal information of Nigerians and the entire NIN project were not hijacked by fraudulent people.

Some panelists at the forum appealed to NIMC to ensure the success of the NIN project, noting that it would yield tremendous growth in consumer credit and aid debt recovery.

Mr Joseph Tegbe, Partner in KPMG Management Consult, West Africa, said that the NIN would boost the credit-worthiness of more businessmen who did not have collateral.

Mr Ken Nwabueze, Chairman, Ekenneth Group, called for harmonisation of data collection through NIN in order to prevent overlap of functions between NIMC and other agencies and organisations performing similar functions.