PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA

PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA

That National ID Card Project

Now that the elections are finally over, I have been able to settle down and take a long hard look at my voter’s card. It does appear to contain some interesting data. My voter’s card contains my name, my address, date of birth, age, sex and a VIN (I presume that means Voter Identification Number). It does not indicate my place of birth or my LGA. If I remember correctly, I was thumb-printed during the registration exercise, but there is no thumb print on the voter’s card. I believe it must be stored in some data base.

The voter registration exercise both stressful and tiresome but it was completed in approximately a month. We are told that about 70 million Nigerians were registered. This is quite a large number and represents almost half of Nigeria’s estimated population of150 million.

While the attention of Nigerians was focused on the elections, another kind of registration was going on quietly and away from media attention. Nigerians, who own mobile phones, have been registering their SIM cards. Existing SIM cards must be registered by June 2011 or else cease to be valid. Thereafter, every new SIM card must be registered to its owner. This exercise is likely to involve no less 40 million Nigerians, for that is the number of mobile phones users we are told exist in this country.

Like many Nigerians, I have two mobile phone lines. One is MTN and the other GLO. I registered both SIM cards at two different locations during the past month. The required data were no different from the ones I had given to INEC a few weeks earlier. ..name, address, date of birth, sex etc. I also had my photograph and thumb print taken. The only difference was that no card was issued to me.

Look closely, and you will realize that there is another, constantly on-going registration taking place in Nigeria. Every Nigerian wishing to open a bank account is normally taken through a rigorous registration and identification exercise. The individual must provide among other data, name, date of birth, address, next of kin, occupation, referee etc, etc. I do not know how many bank accounts are being operated in Nigeria but my guess is that they may be up to twenty million or more.

Taking the three forms of registration we have just looked at, it becomes evident that Nigeria is capable of registering the total number of people that make up its population. By June, we would have had up to 130 million Nigerians registered in one form or the other. 110 million of these would have been registered within the space of six months!!!

But I wonder if the mother of all Nigerian registrars is taking notice. If you hadn’t guessed by now, the mother of all registrars is the body charged with registering all Nigerians and providing each with a national identity card. For as many years as many of us could remember, Nigeria has been talking about a national ID card scheme. Billions of Naira have been poured into the project but with virtually no result. Indeed, the project has produced more millionaires than it has turned out ID cards.

Of course, there have been excuses as to why this project, so important to our nation has not been implemented. The daunting logistics have often been cited as have been the necessity for even more money. But the fact is that INEC registered close to 70 million people in all nooks and crannies of Nigeria in roughly one month. The mobile phone companies are on their way to registering almost 40 million within six months without disrupting our day to day lives. The question therefore is “Why can’t we implement the ID scheme within six months?” The data required are no different from those used by the other exercises. Even if they were, I imagine the software could be easily adapted to capture the additional data. It appears to me, therefore, that Nigeria could actually execute the National ID card scheme if it had the will to do so. It could and should do so by using or adapting the same methods that INEC and the mobile phone companies have used to carry out voter registration and the registration of SIM cards.

If President Goodluck Jonathan intends to live up to his campaign slogan “A Breath of Fresh Air”, he has a great opportunity to dish Nigerians a first Breath of Fresh Air in his new presidency. He needs to undertake urgently the National ID Card scheme and have it completed before the end of 2011. He should allow no one to intimidate or hoodwink him by claiming that the project requires further billions of Naira to purchase new equipment. The very equipment used by INEC for the voter’s registration could very well be utilized to produce the ID cards. The equipment is still functional and belongs to the same Government. And why would the national ID card not serve a dual purpose as a voter’s card as well…indeed, why not? The national ID card project is a priority project. It is necessary for our security as a nation. It is necessary for planning purposes and we have allowed it to languish for far too long.

Imagine, Mr. President, that you got the national ID card scheme functioning at last and that by December 2011 every Nigerian above the age of 16 years possessed a national ID card. Imagine that this was done at a very reasonable cost…and it could be. Then Nigerians could indeed begin to believe in a new dawn.