The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Abisoye Coker-Odusote on Friday said the commission had paid all its Front-end Partners (FEPs) as it undergoes a total operational overhaul in the last one year.
Speaking at a workshop with publishers of online newspapers with the theme: “Building Formidable Bridges with the Digital Media Ecosystem”, the NIMC boss who clocked one year in office in October revealed great progress made by the Commission under her leadership.
She insisted that NIMC is a critical agency for Nigeria’s development as the National Identification Number (NIN) remained the bedrock for ssocio-economic development.
She also disclosed that 115 million Nigerians and legal residents have been captured by the commission and given their NIN, which she said was being re-created to promote financial inclusion, and enable citizens access to government services on health, education, palliatives, agriculture, grants and loans, and others.
She said: “I am glad to inform you today that all payments for FEPs have been made and we have also designed a system that enables all payments to be made to them in timely manner. It has been agreed that the banks review what we pay to our FEPs according to inflationary trends.
“As at today, 115 million Nigerians and legal residents have been given their NIN. The NIN is increasingly serving as a critical enabler for accessing services. From linking SIM cards to issuing international passports, driver licenses, and examination registrations. We are integrating more and more ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to be able to access our systems and database to provide seamless government services to all Nigerians.
“NIMC is the organisation with the true identity of all Nigerians and that is why as it stands now, the immigration and other agencies will refer you back to us when you have identification issues.
“We are working very hard; my staff work very hard and the staff of NIMC have now been given KPIs which we use to assess performance and we are having great results. We are handling a very critical service and all my staff understands this. Even the one you think is the least staff is very critical because if the cleaner doesn’t clean your office, you can’t sit there to work.”
The DG added that NIMC’s identity management system has also undergone a comprehensive overhaul, setting new standards for security, efficiency, and reliability
She thanked President Bola Tinubu and the World Bank’s Nigeria Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) for supporting the NIMC to become a far better organisation than she met it when she assumed office in 2023.
Earlier, the NIMC Director for Card Management Services, Peter Iwegbu took the participants through recent trend in the National Identity card development, which he called the Government to People (G2P) card. He explained that the new card would give Nigerians access to three critical services, which include identity, financial inclusion and government services.
