Bukola Afeni
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has said Nigerians will have to pay for a new General Multipurpose National ID card.
The commission said though NIN will still be free, but the citizens will still have to pay a certain amount for the new multipurpose card.
The Director General of NIMC, Engineer Abisoye Coker Odusote stated this at a media interaction with Journalists in Abuja.
She said the commission is working with Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), and the Nigeria Inter- bank Settlement System to deliver payment and financial use cases.
According to her, the applicants will pay through banks to access the card which can be obtained within 48 hours.
She said NIMCI mandate speaks to harmonization of data which will be utilized by all agencies in the country.
“The Nigerian Immigration Services utilizes the data from NIMC to populate data for passport services.
We had to also quickly harmonise students loans so that student can use it to regularise their data for loan system”.
“When you type your NIN, the form is automated with your information , and that is why they ask you to go back to NIN. if there is a name mismatch, it won’t go through .
Everything must be the same, your last name, and middle name must match. This has been done successfully with the Nigeria immigration service, and is now been replicated across borders”, she said
The new multipurpose national ID card is a multiple digital Identity that will serve multiple function ,such as payment,travel ,and government intervention services.