President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday
said the ongoing national identity registration being carried out by
the National Identity Management Commission would be used to complement
the nation’s permanent voter card.
He therefore said any Nigerians who wanted their votes to count must ensure that they were captured under the scheme.
Buhari spoke briefly with State House
correspondents shortly after he registered for the scheme at the lobby
of the Presidential Villa’s Council Chambers.
“I think this exercise is very important
to confirm our population and those who are entitled to vote, that is
those who are 18 years and above. It will complement the exercise of the
permanent voter card.
“So, for those who want their votes to
count from whichever party or constituency, they should ensure that they
and their families are properly captured,” Buhari said shortly after
the Director-General of NIMC, Mr. Chris Onyemenam, presented him his
temporary identity card.
Onyemenam later told journalists that seven million Nigerians have been captured under the scheme.
He expressed the hope that the figure
will increase very soon with the synergy currently going on between the
commission and Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
He said, “On our data base, we have a
record of seven million Nigerians. In collaboration with other agencies,
in the next three months or so, we hope to quadruple that number.
“In the past, the private sector was
expected to perform that role, so government did not focus on that. The
close to seven million that we have in our database is the product of
the pilot scheme that we embarked upon to demonstrate the value of the
scheme.
“Now that the MDAs are going to step up the harmonisation, the database will be populated in a matter of weeks.
“As a matter of fact, we are at the stage of migrating the data from the Bank Verification Number and that is about 20million.
“We are truly on course and appreciate
Mr. President for that recent directive that biometrics databases in
government agencies should be expeditiously harmonised.”
Onyemenam explained that the registration
was a continuous exercise, adding that all enrolment centres
established would remain open forever like branches of banks.
He said his commission was working hard
to ensure that enrolment centres were opened in each local government
area across the country.
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